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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Rome Express, by Arthur Griffiths
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Rome Express
+
+Author: Arthur Griffiths
+
+Release Date: March 5, 2004 [eBook #11451]
+[Most recently updated: October 29, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROME EXPRESS ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “M. Floçon interposed with uplifted hand.”]
+
+
+
+
+The ROME EXPRESS
+
+By Arthur Griffiths
+
+
+With a frontispiece in colours By Arthur O. Scott
+
+1907
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+ CHAPTER II.
+ CHAPTER III.
+ CHAPTER IV.
+ CHAPTER V.
+ CHAPTER VI.
+ CHAPTER VII.
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+ CHAPTER IX.
+ CHAPTER X.
+ CHAPTER XI.
+ CHAPTER XII.
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+ CHAPTER XV.
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+ CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROME EXPRESS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Rome Express, the _direttissimo_, or most direct, was approaching
+Paris one morning in March, when it became known to the occupants of
+the sleeping-car that there was something amiss, very much amiss, in
+the car.
+
+The train was travelling the last stage, between Laroche and Paris, a
+run of a hundred miles without a stop. It had halted at Laroche for
+early breakfast, and many, if not all the passengers, had turned out.
+Of those in the sleeping-car, seven in number, six had been seen in the
+restaurant, or about the platform; the seventh, a lady, had not
+stirred. All had reëntered their berths to sleep or doze when the train
+went on, but several were on the move as it neared Paris, taking their
+turn at the lavatory, calling for water, towels, making the usual stir
+of preparation as the end of a journey was at hand.
+
+There were many calls for the porter, yet no porter appeared. At last
+the attendant was found—lazy villain!—asleep, snoring loudly,
+stertorously, in his little bunk at the end of the car. He was roused
+with difficulty, and set about his work in a dull, unwilling, lethargic
+way, which promised badly for his tips from those he was supposed to
+serve.
+
+By degrees all the passengers got dressed, all but two,—the lady in 9
+and 10, who had made no sign as yet; and the man who occupied alone a
+double berth next her, numbered 7 and 8.
+
+As it was the porter’s duty to call every one, and as he was anxious,
+like the rest of his class, to get rid of his travellers as soon as
+possible after arrival, he rapped at each of the two closed doors
+behind which people presumably still slept.
+
+The lady cried “All right,” but there was no answer from No. 7 and 8.
+
+Again and again the porter knocked and called loudly. Still meeting
+with no response, he opened the door of the compartment and went in.
+
+It was now broad daylight. No blind was down; indeed, the one narrow
+window was open, wide; and the whole of the interior of the compartment
+was plainly visible, all and everything in it.
+
+The occupant lay on his bed motionless. Sound asleep? No, not merely
+asleep—the twisted unnatural lie of the limbs, the contorted legs, the
+one arm drooping listlessly but stiffly over the side of the berth,
+told of a deeper, more eternal sleep.
+
+The man was dead. Dead—and not from natural causes.
+
+One glance at the blood-stained bedclothes, one look at the gaping
+wound in the breast, at the battered, mangled face, told the terrible
+story.
+
+It was murder! murder most foul! The victim had been stabbed to the
+heart.
+
+With a wild, affrighted, cry the porter rushed out of the compartment,
+and to the eager questioning of all who crowded round him, he could
+only mutter in confused and trembling accents:
+
+“There! there! in there!”
+
+Thus the fact of the murder became known to every one by personal
+inspection, for every one (even the lady had appeared for just a
+moment) had looked in where the body lay. The compartment was filled
+for some ten minutes or more by an excited, gesticulating, polyglot mob
+of half a dozen, all talking at once in French, English, and Italian.
+
+The first attempt to restore order was made by a tall man, middle-aged,
+but erect in his bearing, with bright eyes and alert manner, who took
+the porter aside, and said sharply in good French, but with a strong
+English accent:
+
+“Here! it’s your business to do something. No one has any right to be
+in that compartment now. There may be reasons—traces—things to remove;
+never mind what. But get them all out. Be sharp about it; and lock the
+door. Remember you will be held responsible to justice.”
+
+The porter shuddered, so did many of the passengers who had overheard
+the Englishman’s last words.
+
+Justice! It is not to be trifled with anywhere, least of all in France,
+where the uncomfortable superstition prevails that every one who can be
+reasonably suspected of a crime is held to be guilty of that crime
+until his innocence is clearly proved.
+
+All those six passengers and the porter were now brought within the
+category of the accused. They were all open to suspicion; they, and
+they alone, for the murdered man had been seen alive at Laroche, and
+the fell deed must have been done since then, while the train was in
+transit, that is to say, going at express speed, when no one could
+leave it except at peril of his life.
+
+“Deuced awkward for us!” said the tall English general, Sir Charles
+Collingham by name, to his brother the parson, when he had reëntered
+their compartment and shut the door.
+
+“I can’t see it. In what way?” asked the Reverend Silas Collingham, a
+typical English cleric, with a rubicund face and square-cut white
+whiskers, dressed in a suit of black serge, and wearing the
+professional white tie.
+
+“Why, we shall be detained, of course; arrested, probably—certainly
+detained. Examined, cross-examined, bully-ragged—I know something of
+the French police and their ways.”
+
+“If they stop us, I shall write to the _Times_” cried his brother, by
+profession a man of peace, but with a choleric eye that told of an
+angry temperament.
+
+“By all means, my dear Silas, when you get the chance. That won’t be
+just yet, for I tell you we’re in a tight place, and may expect a good
+deal of worry.” With that he took out his cigarette-case, and his
+match-box, lighted his cigarette, and calmly watched the smoke rising
+with all the coolness of an old campaigner accustomed to encounter and
+face the ups and downs of life. “I only hope to goodness they’ll run
+straight on to Paris,” he added in a fervent tone, not unmixed with
+apprehension. “No! By jingo, we’re slackening speed—.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t we? It’s right the conductor, or chief of the train, or
+whatever you call him, should know what has happened.”
+
+“Why, man, can’t you see? While the train is travelling express, every
+one must stay on board it; if it slows, it is possible to leave it.”
+
+“Who would want to leave it?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” said the General, rather testily. “Any way, the
+thing’s done now.”
+
+The train had pulled up in obedience to the signal of alarm given by
+some one in the sleeping-car, but by whom it was impossible to say. Not
+by the porter, for he seemed greatly surprised as the conductor came up
+to him.
+
+“How did you know?” he asked.
+
+“Know! Know what? You stopped me.”
+
+“I didn’t.”
+
+“Who rang the bell, then?”
+
+“I did not. But I’m glad you’ve come. There has been a crime—murder.”
+
+“Good Heavens!” cried the conductor, jumping up on to the car, and
+entering into the situation at once. His business was only to verify
+the fact, and take all necessary precautions. He was a burly, brusque,
+peremptory person, the despotic, self-important French official, who
+knew what to do—as he thought—and did it without hesitation or apology.
+
+“No one must leave the car,” he said in a tone not to be misunderstood.
+“Neither now, nor on arrival at the station.”
+
+There was a shout of protest and dismay, which he quickly cut short.
+
+“You will have to arrange it with the authorities in Paris; they can
+alone decide. My duty is plain: to detain you, place you under
+surveillance till then. Afterwards, we will see. Enough, gentlemen and
+madame”—
+
+He bowed with the instinctive gallantry of his nation to the female
+figure which now appeared at the door of her compartment. She stood for
+a moment listening, seemingly greatly agitated, and then, without a
+word, disappeared, retreating hastily into her own private room, where
+she shut herself in.
+
+Almost immediately, at a signal from the conductor, the train resumed
+its journey. The distance remaining to be traversed was short; half an
+hour more, and the Lyons station, at Paris, was reached, where the bulk
+of the passengers—all, indeed, but the occupants of the
+sleeper—descended and passed through the barriers. The latter were
+again desired to keep their places, while a posse of officials came and
+mounted guard. Presently they were told to leave the car one by one,
+but to take nothing with them. All their hand-bags, rugs, and
+belongings were to remain in the berths, just as they lay. One by one
+they were marched under escort to a large and bare waiting-room, which
+had, no doubt, been prepared for their reception.
+
+Here they took their seats on chairs placed at wide intervals apart,
+and were peremptorily forbidden to hold any communication with each
+other, by word or gesture. This order was enforced by a fierce-looking
+guard in blue and red uniform, who stood facing them with his arms
+folded, gnawing his moustache and frowning severely.
+
+Last of all, the porter was brought in and treated like the passengers,
+but more distinctly as a prisoner. He had a guard all to himself; and
+it seemed as though he was the object of peculiar suspicion. It had no
+great effect upon him, for, while the rest of the party were very
+plainly sad, and a prey to lively apprehension, the porter sat dull and
+unmoved, with the stolid, sluggish, unconcerned aspect of a man just
+roused from sound sleep and relapsing into slumber, who takes little
+notice of what is passing around.
+
+Meanwhile, the sleeping-car, with its contents, especially the corpse
+of the victim, was shunted into a siding, and sentries were placed on
+it at both ends. Seals had been affixed upon the entrance doors, so
+that the interior might be kept inviolate until it could be visited and
+examined by the Chef de la Surêté, or Chief of the Detective Service.
+Every one and everything awaited the arrival of this all-important
+functionary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+M. Floçon, the Chief, was an early man, and he paid a first visit to
+his office about 7 A.M.
+
+He lived just round the corner in the Rue des Arcs, and had not far to
+go to the Prefecture. But even now, soon after daylight, he was
+correctly dressed, as became a responsible ministerial officer. He wore
+a tight frock coat and an immaculate white tie; under his arm he
+carried the regulation portfolio, or lawyer’s bag, stuffed full of
+reports, dispositions, and documents dealing with cases in hand. He was
+altogether a very precise and natty little personage, quiet and
+unpretending in demeanour, with a mild, thoughtful face in which two
+small ferrety eyes blinked and twinkled behind gold-rimmed glasses. But
+when things went wrong, when he had to deal with fools, or when scent
+was keen, or the enemy near, he would become as fierce and eager as any
+terrier.
+
+He had just taken his place at his table and begun to arrange his
+papers, which, being a man of method, he kept carefully sorted by lots
+each in an old copy of the _Figaro_, when he was called to the
+telephone. His services were greatly needed, as we know, at the Lyons
+station and the summons was to the following effect:
+
+“Crime on train No. 45. A man murdered in the sleeper. All the
+passengers held. Please come at once. Most important.”
+
+A fiacre was called instantly, and M. Floçon, accompanied by Galipaud
+and Block, the two first inspectors for duty, was driven with all
+possible speed across Paris.
+
+He was met outside the station, just under the wide verandah, by the
+officials, who gave him a brief outline of the facts, so far as they
+were known, and as they have already been put before the reader.
+
+“The passengers have been detained?” asked M. Floçon at once.
+
+“Those in the sleeping-car only—”
+
+“Tut, tut! they should have been all kept—at least until you had taken
+their names and addresses. Who knows what they might not have been able
+to tell?”
+
+It was suggested that as the crime was committed presumably while the
+train was in motion, only those in the one car could be implicated.
+
+“We should never jump to conclusions,” said the Chief snappishly.
+“Well, show me the train card—the list of the travellers in the
+sleeper.”
+
+“It cannot be found, sir.”
+
+“Impossible! Why, it is the porter’s business to deliver it at the end
+of the journey to his superiors, and under the law—to us. Where is the
+porter? In custody?”
+
+“Surely, sir, but there is something wrong with him.”
+
+“So I should think! Nothing of this kind could well occur without his
+knowledge. If he was doing his duty—unless, of course, he—but let us
+avoid hasty conjectures.”
+
+“He has also lost the passengers’ tickets, which you know he retains
+till the end of the journey. After the catastrophe, however, he was
+unable to lay his hand upon his pocket-book. It contained all his
+papers.”
+
+“Worse and worse. There is something behind all this. Take me to him.
+Stay, can I have a private room close to the other—where the prisoners,
+those held on suspicion, are? It will be necessary to hold
+investigations, take their depositions. M. le Juge will be here
+directly.”
+
+M. Floçon was soon installed in a room actually communicating with the
+waiting-room, and as a preliminary of the first importance, taking
+precedence even of the examination of the sleeping-car, he ordered the
+porter to be brought in to answer certain questions.
+
+The man, Ludwig Groote, as he presently gave his name, thirty-two years
+of age, born at Amsterdam, looked such a sluggish, slouching,
+blear-eyed creature that M. Floçon began by a sharp rebuke.
+
+“Now. Sharp! Are you always like this?” cried the Chief.
+
+The porter still stared straight before him with lack-lustre eyes, and
+made no immediate reply.
+
+“Are you drunk? are you—Can it be possible?” he said, and in vague
+reply to a sudden strong suspicion, he went on:
+
+“What were you doing between Laroche and Paris? Sleeping?”
+
+The man roused himself a little. “I think I slept. I must have slept. I
+was very drowsy. I had been up two nights; but so it is always, and I
+am not like this generally. I do not understand.”
+
+“Hah!” The Chief thought he understood. “Did you feel this drowsiness
+before leaving Laroche?”
+
+“No, monsieur, I did not. Certainly not. I was fresh till then—quite
+fresh.”
+
+“Hum; exactly; I see;” and the little Chief jumped to his feet and ran
+round to where the porter stood sheepishly, and sniffed and smelt at
+him.
+
+“Yes, yes.” Sniff, sniff, sniff, the little man danced round and round
+him, then took hold of the porter’s head with one hand, and with the
+other turned down his lower eyelid so as to expose the eyeball, sniffed
+a little more, and then resumed his seat.
+
+“Exactly. And now, where is your train card?”
+
+“Pardon, monsieur, I cannot find it.”
+
+“That is absurd. Where do you keep it? Look again—search—I must have
+it.”
+
+The porter shook his head hopelessly.
+
+“It is gone, monsieur, and my pocket-book.”
+
+“But your papers, the tickets—”
+
+“Everything was in it, monsieur. I must have dropped it.”
+
+Strange, very strange. However—the fact was to be recorded, for the
+moment. He could of course return to it.
+
+“You can give me the names of the passengers?”
+
+“No, monsieur. Not exactly. I cannot remember, not enough to
+distinguish between them.”
+
+“_Fichtre!_ But this is most devilishly irritating. To think that I
+have to do with a man so stupid—such an idiot, such an ass!”
+
+“At least you know how the berths were occupied, how many in each, and
+which persons? Yes? You can tell me that? Well, go on. By and by we
+will have the passengers in, and you can fix their places, after I have
+ascertained their names. Now, please! For how many was the car?”
+
+“Sixteen. There were two compartments of four berths each, and four of
+two berths each.”
+
+“Stay, let us make a plan. I will draw it. Here, now, is that right?”
+and the Chief held up the rough diagram, here shown—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Here we have the six compartments. Now take _a_, with berths 1, 2, 3,
+and 4. Were they all occupied?”
+
+“No; only two, by Englishmen. I know that they talked English, which I
+understand a little. One was a soldier; the other, I think, a
+clergyman, or priest.”
+
+“Good! we can verify that directly. Now, _b_, with berths 5 and 6. Who
+was there?”
+
+“One gentleman. I don’t remember his name. But I shall know him by
+appearance.”
+
+“Go on. In _c_, two berths, 7 and 8?”
+
+“Also one gentleman. It was he who—I mean, that is where the crime
+occurred.”
+
+“Ah, indeed, in 7 and 8? Very well. And the next, 9 and 10?”
+
+“A lady. Our only lady. She came from Rome.”
+
+“One moment. Where did the rest come from? Did any embark on the road?”
+
+“No, monsieur; all the passengers travelled through from Rome.”
+
+“The dead man included? Was he Roman?”
+
+“That I cannot say, but he came on board at Rome.”
+
+“Very well. This lady—she was alone?”
+
+“In the compartment, yes. But not altogether.”
+
+“I do not understand!”
+
+“She had her servant with her.”
+
+“In the car?”
+
+“No, not in the car. As a passenger by second class. But she came to
+her mistress sometimes, in the car.”
+
+“For her service, I presume?”
+
+“Well, yes, monsieur, when I would permit it. But she came a little too
+often, and I was compelled to protest, to speak to Madame la Comtesse—”
+
+“She was a countess, then?”
+
+“The maid addressed her by that title. That is all I know. I heard
+her.”
+
+“When did you see the lady’s maid last?”
+
+“Last night. I think at Amberieux. about 8 p.m.”
+
+“Not this morning?”
+
+“No, sir, I am quite sure of that.”
+
+“Not at Laroche? She did not come on board to stay, for the last stage,
+when her mistress would be getting up, dressing, and likely to require
+her?”
+
+“No; I should not have permitted it.”
+
+“And where is the maid now, d’you suppose?”
+
+The porter looked at him with an air of complete imbecility.
+
+“She is surely somewhere near, in or about the station. She would
+hardly desert her mistress now,” he said, stupidly, at last.
+
+“At any rate we can soon settle that.” The Chief turned to one of his
+assistants, both of whom had been standing behind him all the time, and
+said:
+
+“Step out, Galipaud, and see. No, wait. I am nearly as stupid as this
+simpleton. Describe this maid.”
+
+“Tall and slight, dark-eyed, very black hair. Dressed all in black,
+plain black bonnet. I cannot remember more.”
+
+“Find her, Galipaud—keep your eye on her. We may want her—why, I cannot
+say, as she seems disconnected with the event, but still she ought to
+be at hand.” Then, turning to the porter, he went on. “Finish, please.
+You said 9 and 10 was the lady’s. Well, 11 and 12?”
+
+“It was vacant all through the run.”
+
+“And the last compartment, for four?”
+
+“There were two berths, occupied both by Frenchmen, at least so I
+judged them. They talked French to each other and to me.”
+
+“Then now we have them all. Stand aside, please, and I will make the
+passengers come in. We will then determine their places and affix their
+names from their own admissions. Call them in, Block, one by one.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The questions put by M. Floçon were much the same in every case, and
+were limited in this early stage of the inquiry to the one point of
+identity.
+
+The first who entered was a Frenchman. He was a jovial, fat-faced,
+portly man, who answered to the name of Anatole Lafolay, and who
+described himself as a traveller in precious stones. The berth he had
+occupied was No. 13 in compartment _f_. His companion in the berth was
+a younger man, smaller, slighter, but of much the same stamp. His name
+was Jules Devaux, and he was a commission agent. His berth had been No.
+15 in the same compartment, _f_. Both these Frenchmen gave their
+addresses with the names of many people to whom they were well known,
+and established at once a reputation for respectability which was
+greatly in their favour.
+
+The third to appear was the tall, gray-headed Englishman, who had taken
+a certain lead at the first discovery of the crime. He called himself
+General Sir Charles Collingham, an officer of her Majesty’s army; and
+the clergyman who shared the compartment was his brother, the Reverend
+Silas Collingham, rector of Theakstone-Lammas, in the county of
+Norfolk. Their berths were numbered 1 and 4 in _a_.
+
+Before the English General was dismissed, he asked whether he was
+likely to be detained.
+
+“For the present, yes,” replied M. Floçon, briefly. He did not care to
+be asked questions. That, under the circumstances, was his business.
+
+“Because I should like to communicate with the British Embassy.”
+
+“You are known there?” asked the detective, not choosing to believe the
+story at first. It might be a ruse of some sort.
+
+“I know Lord Dufferin personally; I was with him in India. Also Colonel
+Papillon, the military attaché; we were in the same regiment. If I sent
+to the Embassy, the latter would, no doubt, come himself.”
+
+“How do you propose to send?”
+
+“That is for you to decide. All I wish is that it should be known that
+my brother and I are detained under suspicion, and incriminated.”
+
+“Hardly that, Monsieur le General. But it shall be as you wish. We will
+telephone from here to the post nearest the Embassy to inform his
+Excellency—”
+
+“Certainly, Lord Dufferin, and my friend, Colonel Papillon.”
+
+“Of what has occurred. And now, if you will permit me to proceed?”
+
+So the single occupant of the compartment _b_, that adjoining the
+Englishmen, was called in. He was an Italian, by name Natale Ripaldi; a
+dark-skinned man, with very black hair and a bristling black moustache.
+He wore a long dark cloak of the Inverness order, and, with the slouch
+hat he carried in his hand, and his downcast, secretive look, he had
+the rather conventional aspect of a conspirator.
+
+“If monsieur permits,” he volunteered to say after the formal
+questioning was over, “I can throw some light on this catastrophe.”
+
+“And how so, pray? Did you assist? Were you present? If so, why wait to
+speak till now?” said the detective, receiving the advance rather
+coldly. It behooved him to be very much on his guard.
+
+“I have had no opportunity till now of addressing any one in authority.
+You are in authority, I presume?”
+
+“I am the Chief of the Detective Service.”
+
+“Then, monsieur, remember, please, that I can give some useful
+information when called upon. Now, indeed, if you will receive it.”
+
+M. Floçon was so anxious to approach the inquiry without prejudice that
+he put up his hand.
+
+“We will wait, if you please. When M. le Juge arrives, then, perhaps;
+at any rate, at a later stage. That will do now, thank you.”
+
+The Italian’s lip curled with a slight indication of contempt at the
+French detective’s methods, but he bowed without speaking, and went
+out.
+
+Last of all the lady appeared, in a long sealskin travelling cloak, and
+closely veiled. She answered M. Floçon’s questions in a low, tremulous
+voice, as though greatly perturbed.
+
+She was the Contessa di Castagneto, she said, an Englishwoman by birth;
+but her husband had been an Italian, as the name implied, and they
+resided in Rome. He was dead—she had been a widow for two or three
+years, and was on her way now to London.
+
+“That will do, madame, thank you,” said the detective, politely, “for
+the present at least.”
+
+“Why, are we likely to be detained? I trust not.” Her voice became
+appealing, almost piteous. Her hands, restlessly moving, showed how
+much she was distressed.
+
+“Indeed, Madame la Comtesse, it must be so. I regret it infinitely; but
+until we have gone further into this, have elicited some facts, arrived
+at some conclusions—But there, madame, I need not, must not say more.”
+
+“Oh, monsieur, I was so anxious to continue my journey. Friends are
+awaiting me in London. I do hope—I most earnestly beg and entreat you
+to spare me. I am not very strong; my health is indifferent. Do, sir,
+be so good as to release me from—”
+
+As she spoke, she raised her veil, and showed what no woman wishes to
+hide, least of all when seeking the good-will of one of the opposite
+sex. She had a handsome face—strikingly so. Not even the long journey,
+the fatigue, the worries and anxieties which had supervened, could rob
+her of her marvellous beauty.
+
+She was a brilliant brunette, dark-skinned; but her complexion was of a
+clear, pale olive, and as soft, as lustrous as pure ivory. Her great
+eyes, of a deep velvety brown, were saddened by near tears. She had
+rich red lips, the only colour in her face, and these, habitually
+slightly apart, showed pearly-white glistening teeth.
+
+It was difficult to look at this charming woman without being affected
+by her beauty. M. Floçon was a Frenchman, gallant and impressionable;
+yet he steeled his heart. A detective must beware of sentiment, and he
+seemed to see something insidious in this appeal, which he resented.
+
+“Madame, it is useless,” he answered gruffly. “I do not make the law; I
+have only to support it. Every good citizen is bound to that.”
+
+“I trust I am a good citizen,” said the Countess, with a wan smile, but
+very wearily. “Still, I should wish to be let off now. I have suffered
+greatly, terribly, by this horrible catastrophe. My nerves are quite
+shattered. It is too cruel. However, I can say no more, except to ask
+that you will let my maid come to me.”
+
+M. Floçon, still obdurate, would not even consent to that.
+
+“I fear, madame, that for the present at least you cannot be allowed to
+communicate with any one, not even with your maid.”
+
+“But she is not implicated; she was not in the car. I have not seen her
+since—”
+
+“Since?” repeated M. Floçon, after a pause.
+
+“Since last night, at Amberieux, about eight o’clock. She helped me to
+undress, and saw me to bed. I sent her away then, and said I should not
+need her till we reached Paris. But I want her now, indeed I do.”
+
+“She did not come to you at Laroche?”
+
+“No. Have I not said so? The porter,”—here she pointed to the man, who
+stood staring at her from the other side of the table,—“he made
+difficulties about her being in the car, saying that she came too
+often, stayed too long, that I must pay for her berth, and so on. I did
+not see why I should do that; so she stayed away.”
+
+“Except from time to time?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“And the last time was at Amberieux?”
+
+“As I have told you, and he will tell you the same.”
+
+“Thank you, madame, that will do.” The Chief rose from his chair,
+plainly intimating that the interview was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+He had other work to do, and was eager to get at it. So he left Block
+to show the Countess back to the waiting-room, and, motioning to the
+porter that he might also go, the Chief hastened to the sleeping-car,
+the examination of which, too long delayed, claimed his urgent
+attention.
+
+It is the first duty of a good detective to visit the actual theatre of
+a crime and overhaul it inch by inch,—seeking, searching,
+investigating, looking for any, even the most insignificant, traces of
+the murderer’s hands.
+
+The sleeping-car, as I have said, had been side-tracked, its doors were
+sealed, and it was under strict watch and ward. But everything, of
+course, gave way before the detective, and, breaking through the seals,
+he walked in, making straight for the little room or compartment where
+the body of the victim still lay untended and absolutely untouched.
+
+It was a ghastly sight, although not new in M. Floçon’s experience.
+There lay the corpse in the narrow berth, just as it had been stricken.
+It was partially undressed, wearing only shirt and drawers. The former
+lay open at the chest, and showed the gaping wound that had, no doubt,
+caused death, probably instantaneous death. But other blows had been
+struck; there must have been a struggle, fierce and embittered, as for
+dear life. The savage truculence of the murderer had triumphed, but not
+until he had battered in the face, destroying features and rendering
+recognition almost impossible.
+
+A knife had given the mortal wound; that was at once apparent from the
+shape of the wound. It was the knife, too, which had gashed and stabbed
+the face, almost wantonly; for some of these wounds had not bled, and
+the plain inference was that they had been inflicted after life had
+sped. M. Floçon examined the body closely, but without disturbing it.
+The police medical officer would wish to see it as it was found. The
+exact position, as well as the nature of the wounds, might afford
+evidence as to the manner of death.
+
+But the Chief looked long, and with absorbed, concentrated interest, at
+the murdered man, noting all he actually saw, and conjecturing a good
+deal more.
+
+The features of the mutilated face were all but unrecognizable, but the
+hair, which was abundant, was long, black, and inclined to curl; the
+black moustache was thick and drooping. The shirt was of fine linen,
+the drawers silk. On one finger were two good rings, the hands were
+clean, the nails well kept, and there was every evidence that the man
+did not live by manual labour. He was of the easy, cultured class, as
+distinct from the workman or operative.
+
+This conclusion was borne out by his light baggage, which still lay
+about the berth,—hat-box, rugs, umbrella, brown morocco hand-bag. All
+were the property of some one well to do, or at least possessed of
+decent belongings. One or two pieces bore a monogram, “F.Q.,” the same
+as on the shirt and under-linen; but on the bag was a luggage label,
+with the name, “Francis Quadling, passenger to Paris,” in full. Its
+owner had apparently no reason to conceal his name. More strangely,
+those who had done him to death had been at no pains to remove all
+traces of his identity.
+
+M. Floçon opened the hand-bag, seeking for further evidence; but found
+nothing of importance,—only loose collars, cuffs, a sponge and
+slippers, two Italian newspapers of an earlier date. No money,
+valuables, or papers. All these had been removed probably, and
+presumably, by the perpetrator of the crime.
+
+Having settled the first preliminary but essential points, he next
+surveyed the whole compartment critically. Now, for the first time, he
+was struck with the fact that the window was open to its full height.
+Since when was this? It was a question to be put presently to the
+porter and any others who had entered the car, but the discovery drew
+him to examine the window more closely, and with good results.
+
+At the ledge, caught on a projecting point on the far side, partly in,
+partly out of the car, was a morsel of white lace, a scrap of feminine
+apparel; although what part, or how it had come there, was not at once
+obvious to M. Floçon. A long and minute inspection of this bit of lace,
+which he was careful not to detach as yet from the place in which he
+found it, showed that it was ragged, and frayed, and fast caught where
+it hung. It could not have been blown there by any chance air; it must
+have been torn from the article to which it belonged, whatever that
+might be,—head-dress, nightcap, night-dress, or handkerchief. The lace
+was of a kind to serve any of these purposes.
+
+Inspecting further, M. Floçon made a second discovery. On the small
+table under the window was a short length of black jet beading, part of
+the trimming or ornamentation of a lady’s dress.
+
+These two objects of feminine origin—one partly outside the car, the
+other near it, but quite inside—gave rise to many conjectures. It led,
+however, to the inevitable conclusion that a woman had been at some
+time or other in the berth. M. Floçon could not but connect these two
+finds with the fact of the open window. The latter might, of course,
+have been the work of the murdered man himself at an earlier hour. Yet
+it is unusual, as the detective imagined, for a passenger, and
+especially an Italian, to lie under an open window in a sleeping-berth
+when travelling by express train before daylight in March.
+
+Who opened that window, then, and why? Perhaps some further facts might
+be found on the outside of the car. With this idea, M. Floçon left it,
+and passed on to the line or permanent way.
+
+Here he found himself a good deal below the level of the car. These
+sleepers have no foot-boards like ordinary carriages; access to them is
+gained from a platform by the steps at each end. The Chief was short of
+stature, and he could only approach the window outside by calling one
+of the guards and ordering him to make the small ladder (_faire la
+petite echelle_). This meant stooping and giving a back, on which
+little M. Floçon climbed nimbly, and so was raised to the necessary
+height.
+
+A close scrutiny revealed nothing unusual. The exterior of the car was
+encrusted with the mud and dust gathered in the journey, none of which
+appeared to have been disturbed.
+
+M. Floçon reëntered the carriage neither disappointed nor pleased; his
+mind was in an open state, ready to receive any impressions, and as yet
+only one that was at all clear and distinct was borne in on him.
+
+This was the presence of the lace and the jet beads in the theatre of
+the crime. The inference was fair and simple. He came logically and
+surely to this:
+
+1. That some woman had entered the compartment.
+
+2. That whether or not she had come in before the crime, she was there
+after the window had been opened, which was not done by the murdered
+man.
+
+3. That she had leaned out, or partly passed out, of the window at some
+time or other, as the scrap of lace testified.
+
+4. Why had she leaned out? To seek some means of exit or escape, of
+course.
+
+But escape from whom? from what? The murderer? Then she must know him,
+and unless an accomplice (if so, why run from him?), she would give up
+her knowledge on compulsion, if not voluntarily, as seemed doubtful,
+seeing she (his suspicions were consolidating) had not done so already.
+
+But there might be another even stronger reason to attempt escape at
+such imminent risk as leaving an express train at full speed. To escape
+from her own act and the consequences it must entail—escape from horror
+first, from detection next, and then from arrest and punishment.
+
+All this would imperiously impel even a weak woman to face the worst
+peril, to look out, lean out, even try the terrible but impossible feat
+of climbing out of the car.
+
+So M. Floçon, by fair process of reasoning, reached a point which
+incriminated one woman, the only woman possible, and that was the
+titled, high-bred lady who called herself the Contessa di Castagneto.
+
+This conclusion gave a definite direction to further search. Consulting
+the rough plan which he had constructed to take the place of the
+missing train card, he entered the compartment which the Countess had
+occupied, and which was actually next door.
+
+It was in the tumbled, untidy condition of a sleeping-place but just
+vacated. The sex and quality of its recent occupant were plainly
+apparent in the goods and chattels lying about, the property and
+possessions of a delicate, well-bred woman of the world, things still
+left as she had used them last—rugs still unrolled, a pair of
+easy-slippers on the floor, the sponge in its waterproof bag on the
+bed, brushes, bottles, button-hook, hand-glass, many things belonging
+to the dressing-bag, not yet returned to that receptacle. The maid was
+no doubt to have attended to all these, but as she had not come, they
+remained unpacked and strewn about in some disorder.
+
+M. Floçon pounced down upon the contents of the berth, and commenced an
+immediate search for a lace scarf, or any wrap or cover with lace.
+
+He found nothing, and was hardly disappointed. It told more against the
+Countess, who, if innocent, would have no reason to conceal or make
+away with a possibly incriminating possession, the need for which she
+could not of course understand.
+
+Next, he handled the dressing-bag, and with deft fingers replaced
+everything.
+
+Everything was forthcoming but one glass bottle, a small one, the
+absence of which he noted, but thought of little consequence, till, by
+and by, he came upon it under peculiar circumstances.
+
+Before leaving the car, and after walking through the other
+compartments, M. Floçon made an especially strict search of the corner
+where the porter had his own small chair, his only resting-place,
+indeed, throughout the journey. He had not forgotten the attendant’s
+condition when first examined, and he had even then been nearly
+satisfied that the man had been hocussed, narcotized, drugged.
+
+Any doubts were entirely removed by his picking up near the porter’s
+seat a small silver-topped bottle and a handkerchief, both marked with
+coronet and monogram, the last of which, although the letters were much
+interlaced and involved, were decipherable as S.L.L.C.
+
+It was that of the Countess, and corresponded with the marks on her
+other belongings. He put it to his nostril, and recognized at once by
+its smell that it had contained tincture of laudanum, or some
+preparation of that drug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+M. Floçon was an experienced detective, and he knew so well that he
+ought to be on his guard against the most plausible suggestions, that
+he did not like to make too much of these discoveries. Still, he was
+distinctly satisfied, if not exactly exultant, and he went back towards
+the station with a strong predisposition against the Contessa di
+Castagneto.
+
+Just outside the waiting-room, however, his assistant, Galipaud, met
+him with news which rather dashed his hopes, and gave a new direction
+to his thoughts.
+
+The lady’s maid was not to be found.
+
+“Impossible!” cried the Chief, and then at once suspicion followed
+surprise.
+
+“I have looked, monsieur, inquired everywhere; the maid has not been
+seen. She certainly is not here.”
+
+“Did she go through the barrier with the other passengers?”
+
+“No one knows; no one remembers her; not even the conductor. But she
+has gone. That is positive.”
+
+“Yet it was her duty to be here; to attend to her service. Her mistress
+would certainly want her—has asked for her! Why should she run away?”
+
+This question presented itself as one of infinite importance, to be
+pondered over seriously before he went further into the inquiry.
+
+Did the Countess know of this disappearance?
+
+She had asked imploringly for her maid. True, but might that not be a
+blind? Women are born actresses, and at need can assume any part,
+convey any impression. Might not the Countess have wished to be
+dissociated from the maid, and therefore have affected complete
+ignorance of her flight?
+
+“I will try her further,” said M. Floçon to himself.
+
+But then, supposing that the maid had taken herself off of her own
+accord? Why was it? Why had she done so? Because—because she was afraid
+of something. If so, of what? No direct accusation could be brought
+against her on the face of it. She had not been in the sleeping-car at
+the time of the murder, while the Countess as certainly was; and,
+according to strong presumption, in the very compartment where the deed
+was done. If the maid was afraid, why was she afraid?
+
+Only on one possible hypothesis. That she was either in collusion with
+the Countess, or possessed of some guilty knowledge tending to
+incriminate the Countess and probably herself. She had run away to
+avoid any inconvenient questioning tending to get her mistress into
+trouble, which would react probably on herself.
+
+“We must press the Countess on this point closely; I will put it
+plainly to M. le Juge,” said the detective, as he entered the private
+room set apart for the police authorities, where he found M. Beaumont
+le Hardi, the instructing judge, and the Commissary of the Quartier
+(arrondissement).
+
+A lengthy conference followed among the officials. M. Floçon told all
+he knew, all he had discovered, gave his views with all the force and
+fluency of a public prosecutor, and was congratulated warmly on the
+progress he had made.
+
+“I agree with you, sir,” said the instructing judge: “we must have in
+the Countess first, and pursue the line indicated as regards the
+missing maid.”
+
+“I will fetch her, then. Stay, what can be going on in there?” cried M.
+Floçon, rising from his seat and running into the outer waiting-room,
+which, to his surprise and indignation, he found in great confusion.
+
+The guard who was on duty was struggling, in personal conflict almost,
+with the English General. There was a great hubbub of voices, and the
+Countess was lying back half-fainting in her chair.
+
+“What’s all this? How dare you, sir?”
+
+This to the General, who now had the man by the throat with one hand
+and with the other was preventing him from drawing his sword.
+“Desist—forbear! You are opposing legal authority; desist, or I will
+call in assistance and will have you secured and removed.”
+
+The little Chief’s blood was up; he spoke warmly, with all the force
+and dignity of an official who sees the law outraged.
+
+“It is entirely the fault of this ruffian of yours; he has behaved most
+brutally,” replied Sir Charles, still holding him tight.
+
+“Let him go, monsieur; your behaviour is inexcusable. What! you, a
+military officer of the highest rank, to assault a sentinel! For shame!
+This is unworthy of you!”
+
+“He deserves to be scragged, the beast!” went on the General, as with
+one sharp turn of the wrist he threw the guard off, and sent him flying
+nearly across the room, where, being free at last, the Frenchman drew
+his sword and brandished it threateningly—from a distance.
+
+But M. Floçon interposed with uplifted hand and insisted upon an
+explanation.
+
+“It is just this,” replied Sir Charles, speaking fast and with much
+fierceness: “that lady there—poor thing, she is ill, you can see that
+for yourself, suffering, overwrought; she asked for a glass of water,
+and this brute, triple brute, as you say in French, refused to bring
+it.”
+
+“I could not leave the room,” protested the guard. “My orders were
+precise.”
+
+“So I was going to fetch the water,” went on the General angrily, eying
+the guard as though he would like to make another grab at him, “and
+this fellow interfered.”
+
+“Very properly,” added M. Floçon.
+
+“Then why didn’t he go himself, or call some one? Upon my word,
+monsieur, you are not to be complimented upon your people, nor your
+methods. I used to think that a Frenchman was gallant, courteous,
+especially to ladies.”
+
+The Chief looked a little disconcerted, but remembering what he knew
+against this particular lady, he stiffened and said severely, “I am
+responsible for my conduct to my superiors, and not to you. Besides,
+you appear to forget your position. You are here, detained—all of
+you”—he spoke to the whole room—“under suspicion. A ghastly crime has
+been perpetrated—by some one among you—”
+
+“Do not be too sure of that,” interposed the irrepressible General.
+
+“Who else could be concerned? The train never stopped after leaving
+Laroche,” said the detective, allowing himself to be betrayed into
+argument.
+
+“Yes, it did,” corrected Sir Charles, with a contemptuous laugh; “shows
+how much you know.”
+
+Again the Chief looked unhappy. He was on dangerous ground, face to
+face with a new fact affecting all his theories,—if fact it was, not
+mere assertion, and that he must speedily verify. But nothing was to be
+gained—much, indeed, might be lost—by prolonging this discussion in the
+presence of the whole party. It was entirely opposed to the French
+practice of investigation, which works secretly, taking witnesses
+separately, one by one, and strictly preventing all intercommunication
+or collusion among them.
+
+“What I know or do not know is my affair,” he said, with an
+indifference he did not feel. “I shall call upon you, M. le Général,
+for your statement in due course, and that of the others.” He bowed
+stiffly to the whole room. “Every one must be interrogated. M. le Juge
+is now here, and he proposes to begin, madame, with you.”
+
+The Countess gave a little start, shivered, and turned very pale.
+
+“Can’t you see she is not equal to it?” cried the General, hotly. “She
+has not yet recovered. In the name of—I do not say chivalry, for that
+would be useless—but of common humanity, spare madame, at least for the
+present.”
+
+“That is impossible, quite impossible. There are reasons why Madame la
+Comtesse should be examined first. I trust, therefore, she will make an
+effort.”
+
+“I will try, if you wish it.” She rose from her chair and walked a few
+steps rather feebly, then stopped.
+
+“No, no, Countess, do not go,” said Sir Charles, hastily, in English,
+as he moved across to where she stood and gave her his hand. “This is
+sheer cruelty, sir, and cannot be permitted.”
+
+“Stand aside!” shouted M. Floçon; “I forbid you to approach that lady,
+to address her, or communicate with her. Guard, advance, do your duty.”
+
+But the guard, although his sword was still out of its sheath, showed
+great reluctance to move. He had no desire to try conclusions again
+with this very masterful person, who was, moreover, a general; as he
+had seen service, he had a deep respect for generals, even of foreign
+growth.
+
+Meanwhile the General held his ground and continued his conversation
+with the Countess, speaking still in English, thus exasperating M.
+Floçon, who did not understand the language, almost to madness.
+
+“This is not to be borne!” he cried. “Here, Galipaud, Block;” and when
+his two trusty assistants came rushing in, he pointed furiously to the
+General. “Seize him, remove him by force if necessary. He shall go to
+the _violon_—to the nearest lock-up.”
+
+The noise attracted also the Judge and the Commissary, and there were
+now six officials in all, including the guard, all surrounding the
+General, a sufficiently imposing force to overawe even the most
+recalcitrant fire-eater.
+
+But now the General seemed to see only the comic side of the situation,
+and he burst out laughing.
+
+“What, all of you? How many more? Why not bring up cavalry and
+artillery, horse, foot, and guns?” he asked, derisively. “All to
+prevent one old man from offering his services to one weak woman!
+Gentlemen, my regards!”
+
+“Really, Charles, I fear you are going too far,” said his brother the
+clergyman, who, however, had been manifestly enjoying the whole scene.
+
+“Indeed, yes. It is not necessary, I assure you,” added the Countess,
+with tears of gratitude in her big brown eyes. “I am most touched, most
+thankful. You are a true soldier, a true English gentleman, and I shall
+never forget your kindness.” Then she put her hand in his with a
+pretty, winning gesture that was reward enough for any man.
+
+Meanwhile, the Judge, the senior official present, had learned exactly
+what had happened, and he now addressed the General with a calm but
+stern rebuke.
+
+“Monsieur will not, I trust, oblige us to put in force the full power
+of the law. I might, if I chose, and as I am fully entitled, commit you
+at once to Mazas, to keep you in solitary confinement. Your conduct has
+been deplorable, well calculated to traverse and impede justice. But I
+am willing to believe that you were led away, not unnaturally, as a
+gallant gentleman,—it is the characteristic of your nation, of your
+cloth,—and that on more mature consideration you will acknowledge and
+not repeat your error.”
+
+M. Beaumont le Hardi was a grave, florid, soft-voiced person, with a
+bald head and a comfortably-lined white waistcoat; one who sought his
+ends by persuasion, not force, but who had the instincts of a
+gentleman, and little sympathy with the peremptory methods of his more
+inflammable colleague.
+
+“Oh, with all my heart, monsieur,” said Sir Charles, cordially. “You
+saw, or at least know, how this has occurred. I did not begin it, nor
+was I the most to blame. But I was in the wrong, I admit. What do you
+wish me to do now?”
+
+“Give me your promise to abide by our rules,—they may be irksome, but
+we think them necessary,—and hold no further converse with your
+companions.”
+
+“Certainly, certainly, monsieur,—at least after I have said one word
+more to Madame la Comtesse.”
+
+“No, no, I cannot permit even that—”
+
+But Sir Charles, in spite of the warning finger held up by the Judge,
+insisted upon crying out to her, as she was being led into the other
+room:
+
+“Courage, dear lady, courage. Don’t let them bully you. You have
+nothing to fear.”
+
+Any further defiance of authority was now prevented by her almost
+forcible removal from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The stormy episode just ended had rather a disturbing effect on M.
+Floçon, who could scarcely give his full attention to all the points,
+old and new, that had now arisen in the investigation. But he would
+have time to go over them at his leisure, while the work of
+interrogation was undertaken by the Judge.
+
+The latter had taken his seat at a small table, and just opposite was
+his _greffier_, or clerk, who was to write down question and answer,
+_verbatim_. A little to one side, with the light full on the face, the
+witness was seated, bearing the scrutiny of three pairs of eyes—the
+Judge first, and behind him, those of the Chief Detective and the
+Commissary of Police.
+
+“I trust, madame, that you are equal to answering a few questions?”
+began M. le Hardi, blandly.
+
+“Oh, yes, I hope so. Indeed, I have no choice,” replied the Countess,
+bravely resigned.
+
+“They will refer principally to your maid.”
+
+“Ah!” said the Countess, quickly and in a troubled voice, yet she bore
+the gaze of the three officials without flinching.
+
+“I want to know a little more about her, if you please.”
+
+“Of course. Anything I know I will tell you.” She spoke now with
+perfect self-possession. “But if I might ask—why this interest?”
+
+“I will tell you frankly. You asked for her, we sent for her, and—”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“She cannot be found. She is not in the station.”
+
+The Countess all but jumped from her chair in her surprise—surprise
+that seemed too spontaneous to be feigned.
+
+“Impossible! it cannot be. She would not dare to leave me here like
+this, all alone.”
+
+“_Parbleu!_ she has dared. Most certainly she is not here.”
+
+“But what can have become of her?”
+
+“Ah, madame, what indeed? Can you form any idea? We hoped you might
+have been able to enlighten us.”
+
+“I cannot, monsieur, not in the least.”
+
+“Perchance you sent her on to your hotel to warn your friends that you
+were detained? To fetch them, perhaps, to you in your trouble?”
+
+The trap was neatly contrived, but she was not deceived.
+
+“How could I? I knew of no trouble when I saw her last.”
+
+“Oh, indeed? and when was that?”
+
+“Last night, at Amberieux, as I have already told that gentleman.” She
+pointed to M. Floçon, who was obliged to nod his head.
+
+“Well, she has gone away somewhere. It does not much matter, still it
+is odd, and for your sake we should like to help you to find her, if
+you do wish to find her?”
+
+Another little trap which failed.
+
+“Indeed I hardly think she is worth keeping after this barefaced
+desertion.”
+
+“No, indeed. And she must be held to strict account for it, must
+justify it, give her reasons. So we must find her for you—”
+
+“I am not at all anxious, really,” the Countess said, quickly, and the
+remark told against her.
+
+“Well, now, Madame la Comtesse, as to her description. Will you tell us
+what was her height, figure, colour of eyes, hair, general appearance?”
+
+“She was tall, above the middle height, at least; slight, good figure,
+black hair and eyes.”
+
+“Pretty?”
+
+“That depends upon what you mean by ‘pretty.’ Some people might think
+so, in her own class.”
+
+“How was she dressed?”
+
+“In plain dark serge, bonnet of black straw and brown ribbons. I do not
+allow my maid to wear colours.”
+
+“Exactly. And her name, age, place of birth?”
+
+“Hortense Petitpré, thirty-two, born, I believe, in Paris.”
+
+The Judge, when these particulars had been given, looked over his
+shoulder towards the detective, but said nothing. It was quite
+unnecessary, for M. Floçon, who had been writing in his note-book, now
+rose and left the room. He called Galipaud to him, saying sharply:
+
+“Here is the more detailed description of the lady’s maid, and in
+writing. Have it copied and circulate it at once. Give it to the
+station-master, and to the agents of police round about here. I have an
+idea—only an idea—that this woman has not gone far. It may be worth
+nothing, still there is the chance. People who are wanted often hang
+about the very place they would _not_ stay in if they were wise.
+Anyhow, set a watch for her and come back here.”
+
+Meanwhile, the Judge had continued his questioning.
+
+“And where, madame, did you obtain your maid?”
+
+“In Rome. She was there, out of a place. I heard of her at an agency
+and registry office, when I was looking for a maid a month or two ago.”
+
+“Then she has not been long in your service?”
+
+“No; as I tell you, she came to me in December last.”
+
+“Well recommended?”
+
+“Strongly. She had lived with good families, French and English.”
+
+“And with you, what was her character?”
+
+“Irreproachable.”
+
+“Well, so much for Hortense Petitpré. She is not far off, I dare say.
+When we want her we shall be able to lay hands on her, I do not doubt,
+madame may rest assured.”
+
+“Pray take no trouble in the matter. I certainly should not keep her.”
+
+“Very well, very well. And now, another small matter. I see,” he
+referred to the rough plan of the sleeping-car prepared by M.
+Floçon,—“I see that you occupied the compartment _d_, with berths Nos.
+9 and 10?”
+
+“I think 9 was the number of my berth.”
+
+“It was. You may be certain of that. Now next door to your
+compartment—do you know who was next door? I mean in 7 and 8?”
+
+The Countess’s lip quivered, and she was a prey to sudden emotion as
+she answered in a low voice:
+
+“It was where—where—”
+
+“There, there, madame,” said the Judge, reassuring her as he would a
+little child. “You need not say. It is no doubt very distressing to
+you. Yet, you know?”
+
+She bent her head slowly, but uttered no word.
+
+“Now this man, this poor man, had you noticed him at all? No—no—not
+afterwards, of course. It would not be likely. But during the journey.
+Did you speak to him, or he to you?”
+
+“No, no—distinctly no.”
+
+“Nor see him?”
+
+“Yes, I saw him, I believe, at Modane with the rest when we dined.”
+
+“Ah! exactly so. He dined at Modane. Was that the only occasion on
+which you saw him? You had never met him previously in Rome, where you
+resided?”
+
+“Whom do you mean? The murdered man?”
+
+“Who else?”
+
+“No, not that I am aware of. At least I did not recognize him as a
+friend.”
+
+“I presume, if he was among your friends—”
+
+“Pardon me, that he certainly was not,” interrupted the Countess.
+
+“Well, among your acquaintances—he would probably have made himself
+known to you?”
+
+“I suppose so.”
+
+“And he did not do so? He never spoke to you, nor you to him?”
+
+“I never saw him, the occupant of that compartment, except on that one
+occasion. I kept a good deal in my compartment during the journey.”
+
+“Alone? It must have been very dull for you,” said the Judge,
+pleasantly.
+
+“I was not always alone,” said the Countess, hesitatingly, and with a
+slight flush. “I had friends in the car.”
+
+“Oh—oh”—the exclamation was long-drawn and rather significant.
+
+“Who were they? You may as well tell us, madame, we should certainly
+find out.”
+
+“I have no wish to withhold the information,” she replied, now turning
+pale, possibly at the imputation conveyed. “Why should I?”
+
+“And these friends were—?”
+
+“Sir Charles Collingham and his brother. They came and sat with me
+occasionally; sometimes one, sometimes the other.”
+
+“During the day?”
+
+“Of course, during the day.” Her eyes flashed, as though the question
+was another offence.
+
+“Have you known them long?”
+
+“The General I met in Roman society last winter. It was he who
+introduced his brother.”
+
+“Very good, so far. The General knew you, took an interest in you. That
+explains his strange, unjustifiable conduct just now—”
+
+“I do not think it was either strange or unjustifiable,” interrupted
+the Countess, hotly. “_He_ is a gentleman.”
+
+“Quite a _preux cavalier_, of course. But we will pass on. You are not
+a good sleeper, I believe, madame?”
+
+“Indeed no, I sleep badly, as a rule.”
+
+“Then you would be easily disturbed. Now, last night, did you hear
+anything strange in the car, more particularly in the adjoining
+compartment?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“No sound of voices raised high, no noise of a conflict, a struggle?”
+
+“No, monsieur.”
+
+“That is odd. I cannot understand it. We know, beyond all question,
+from the appearance of the body,—the corpse,—that there was a fight, an
+encounter. Yet you, a wretched sleeper, with only a thin plank of wood
+between you and the affray, hear nothing, absolutely nothing. It is
+_most_ extraordinary.”
+
+“I was asleep. I must have been asleep.”
+
+“A light sleeper would certainly be awakened. How can you explain—how
+can you reconcile that?” The question was blandly put, but the Judge’s
+incredulity verged upon actual insolence.
+
+“Easily: I had taken a soporific. I always do, on a journey. I am
+obliged to keep something, sulphonal or chloral, by me, on purpose.”
+
+“Then this, madame, is yours?” And the Judge, with an air of
+undisguised triumph, produced the small glass vial which M. Floçon had
+picked up in the sleeping-car near the conductor’s seat.
+
+The Countess, with a quick gesture, put out her hand to take it.
+
+“No, I cannot give it up. Look as near as you like, and say is it
+yours?”
+
+“Of course it is mine. Where did you get it? Not in my berth?”
+
+“No, madame, not in your berth.”
+
+“But where?”
+
+“Pardon me, we shall not tell you—not just now.”
+
+“I missed it last night,” went on the Countess, slightly confused.
+
+“After you had taken your dose of chloral?”
+
+“No, before.”
+
+“And why did you want this? It is laudanum.”
+
+“For my nerves. I have a toothache. I—I—really, sir, I need not tell
+you all my ailments.”
+
+“And the maid had removed it?”
+
+“So I presume; she must have taken it out of the bag in the first
+instance.”
+
+“And then kept it?”
+
+“That is what I can only suppose.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+When the Judge had brought down the interrogation of the Countess to
+the production of the small glass bottle, he paused, and with a
+long-drawn “Ah!” of satisfaction, looked round at his colleagues.
+
+Both M. Floçon and the Commissary nodded their heads approvingly,
+plainly sharing his triumph.
+
+Then they all put their heads together in close, whispered conference.
+
+“Admirable, M. le Juge!” said the detective. “You have been most
+adroit. It is a clear case.”
+
+“No doubt,” said the Commissary, who was a blunt, rather coarse person,
+believing that to take anybody and everybody into custody is always the
+safest and simplest course. “It looks black against her. I think she
+ought to be arrested at once.”
+
+“We might, indeed we ought to have more evidence, more definite
+evidence, perhaps?” The Judge was musing over the facts as he knew
+them. “I should like, before going further, to look at the car,” he
+said, suddenly coming to a conclusion.
+
+M. Floçon readily agreed. “We will go together,” he said, adding,
+“Madame will remain here, please, until we return. It may not be for
+long.”
+
+“And afterwards?” asked the Countess, whose nervousness had if anything
+increased during the whispered colloquy of the officials.
+
+“Ah, afterwards! Who knows?” was the reply, with a shrug of the
+shoulders, all most enigmatic and unsatisfactory.
+
+“What have we against her?” said the Judge, as soon as they had gained
+the absolute privacy of the sleeping-car.
+
+“The bottle of laudanum and the porter’s condition. He was undoubtedly
+drugged,” answered the detective; and the discussion which followed
+took the form of a dialogue between them, for the Commissary took no
+part in it.
+
+“Yes; but why by the Countess? How do we know that positively?”
+
+“It is her bottle,” said M. Floçon.
+
+“Her story may be true—that she missed it, that the maid took it.”
+
+“We have nothing whatever against the maid. We know nothing about her.”
+
+“No. Except that she has disappeared. But that tells more against her
+mistress. It is all very vague. I do not see my way quite, as yet.”
+
+“But the fragment of lace, the broken beading? Surely, M. le Juge, they
+are a woman’s, and only one woman was in the car—”
+
+“So far as we know.”
+
+“But if these could be proved to be hers?”
+
+“Ah! if you could prove that!”
+
+“Easy enough. Have her searched, here at once, in the station. There is
+a female searcher attached to the detention-room.”
+
+“It is a strong measure. She is a lady.”
+
+“Ladies who commit crimes must not expect to be handled with kid
+gloves.”
+
+“She is an Englishwoman, or with English connections; titled, too. I
+hesitate, upon my word. Suppose we are wrong? It may lead to
+unpleasantness. M. le Prefet is anxious to avoid complications possibly
+international.”
+
+As he spoke, he bent over, and, taking a magnifier from his pocket,
+examined the lace, which still fluttered where it was caught.
+
+“It is fine lace, I think. What say you, M. Floçon? You may be more
+experienced in such matters.”
+
+“The finest, or nearly so; I believe it is Valenciennes—the trimming of
+some underclothing, I should think. That surely is sufficient, M. le
+Juge?”
+
+M. Beaumont le Hardi gave a reluctant consent, and the Chief went back
+himself to see that the searching was undertaken without loss of time.
+
+The Countess protested, but vainly, against this new indignity. What
+could she do? A prisoner, practically friendless,—for the General was
+not within reach,—to resist was out of the question. Indeed, she was
+plainly told that force would be employed unless she submitted with a
+good grace. There was nothing for it but to obey.
+
+Mother Tontaine, as the female searcher called herself, was an
+evil-visaged, corpulent old creature, with a sickly, soft, insinuating
+voice, and a greasy, familiar manner that was most offensive. They had
+given her the scrap of torn lace and the débris of the jet as a guide,
+with very particular directions to see if they corresponded with any
+part of the lady’s apparel.
+
+She soon showed her quality.
+
+“Aha! oho! What is this, my pretty princess? How comes so great a lady
+into the hands of Mother Tontaine? But I will not harm you, my beauty,
+my pretty, my little one. Oh, no, no, I will not trouble you, dearie.
+No, trust to me;” and she held out one skinny claw, and looked the
+other way. The Countess did not or would not understand.
+
+“Madame has money?” went on the old hag in a half-threatening,
+half-coaxing whisper, as she came up quite close, and fastened on her
+victim like a bird of prey.
+
+“If you mean that I am to bribe you—”
+
+“Fie, the nasty word! But just a small present, a pretty gift, one or
+two yellow bits, twenty, thirty, forty francs—you’d better.” She shook
+the soft arm she held roughly, and anything seemed preferable than to
+be touched by this horrible woman.
+
+“Wait, wait!” cried the Countess, shivering all over, and, feeling
+hastily for her purse, she took out several napoleons.
+
+“Aha! oho! One, two, three,” said the searcher in a fat, wheedling
+voice. “Four, yes, four, five;” and she clinked the coins together in
+her palm, while a covetous light came into her faded eyes at the joyous
+sound. “Five—make it five at once, d’ye hear me?—or I’ll call them in
+and tell them. That will go against you, my princess. What, try to
+bribe a poor old woman, Mother Tontaine, honest and incorruptible
+Tontaine? Five, then, five!”
+
+With trembling haste the Countess emptied the whole contents of her
+purse in the old hag’s hand.
+
+“_Bon aubaine_. Nice pickings. It is a misery what they pay me here. I
+am, oh, so poor, and I have children, many babies. You will not tell
+them—the police—you dare not. No, no, no.”
+
+Thus muttering to herself, she shambled across the room to a corner,
+where she stowed the money safely away. Then she came back, showed the
+bit of lace, and pressed it into the Countess’s hands.
+
+“Do you know this, little one? Where it comes from, where there is much
+more? I was told to look for it, to search for it on you;” and with a
+quick gesture she lifted the edge of the Countess’s skirt, dropping it
+next moment with a low, chuckling laugh.
+
+“Oho! aha! You were right, my pretty, to pay me, my pretty—right. And
+some day, to-day, to-morrow, whenever I ask you, you will remember
+Mother Tontaine.”
+
+The Countess listened with dismay. What had she done? Put herself into
+the power of this greedy and unscrupulous old beldame?
+
+“And this, my princess? What have we here, aha?”
+
+Mère Tontaine held up next the broken bit of jet ornament for
+inspection, and as the Countess leaned forward to examine it more
+closely, gave it into her hand.
+
+“You recognize it, of course. But be careful, my pretty! Beware! If any
+one were looking, it would ruin you. I could not save you then. Sh! say
+nothing, only look, and quick, give it me back. I must have it to
+show.”
+
+All this time the Countess was turning the jet over and over in her
+open palm, with a perplexed, disturbed, but hardly a terrified air.
+
+Yes, she knew it, or thought she knew it. It had been—But how had it
+come here, into the possession of this base myrmidon of the French
+police?
+
+“Give it me, quick!” There was a loud knock at the door. “They are
+coming. Remember!” Mother Tontaine put her long finger to her lip. “Not
+a word! I have found nothing, of course. Nothing, I can swear to that,
+and you will not forget Mother Tontaine?”
+
+Now M. Floçon stood at the open door awaiting the searcher’s report. He
+looked much disconcerted when the old woman took him on one side and
+briefly explained that the search had been altogether fruitless.
+
+There was nothing to justify suspicion, nothing, so far as she could
+find.
+
+The detective looked from one to the other—from the hag he had employed
+in this unpleasant quest, to the lady on whom it had been tried. The
+Countess, to his surprise, did not complain. He had expected further
+and strong upbraidings. Strange to say, she took it very quietly. There
+was no indignation in her face. She was still pale, and her hands
+trembled, but she said nothing, made no reference, at least, to what
+she had just gone through.
+
+Again he took counsel with his colleague, while the Countess was kept
+apart.
+
+“What next, M. Floçon?” asked the Judge. “What shall we do with her?”
+
+“Let her go,” answered the detective, briefly.
+
+“What! do you suggest this, sir,” said the Judge, slyly. “After your
+strong and well-grounded suspicions?”
+
+“They are as strong as ever, stronger: and I feel sure I shall yet
+justify them. But what I wish now is to let her go at large, under
+surveillance.”
+
+“Ah! you would shadow her?”
+
+“Precisely. By a good agent. Galipaud, for instance. He speaks English,
+and he can, if necessary, follow her anywhere, even to England.”
+
+“She can be extradited,” said the Commissary, with his one prominent
+idea of arrest.
+
+“Do you agree, M. le Juge? Then, if you will permit me, I will give the
+necessary orders, and perhaps you will inform the lady that she is free
+to leave the station?”
+
+The Countess now had reason to change her opinion of the French
+officials. Great politeness now replaced the first severity that had
+been so cruel. She was told, with many bows and apologies, that her
+regretted but unavoidable detention was at an end. Not only was she
+freely allowed to depart, but she was escorted by both M. Floçon and
+the Commissary outside, to where an omnibus was in waiting, and all her
+baggage piled on top, even to the dressing-bag, which had been neatly
+repacked for her.
+
+But the little silver-topped vial had not been restored to her, nor the
+handkerchief.
+
+In her joy at her deliverance, either she had not given these a second
+thought, or she did not wish to appear anxious to recover them.
+
+Nor did she notice that, as the bus passed through the gates at the
+bottom of the large slope that leads from the Lyons Station, it was
+followed at a discreet distance by a modest fiacre, which pulled up,
+eventually, outside the Hôtel Madagascar. Its occupant, M. Galipaud,
+kept the Countess in sight, and, entering the hotel at her heels,
+waited till she had left the office, when he held a long conference
+with the proprietor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+A first stage in the inquiry had now been reached, with results that
+seemed promising, and were yet contradictory.
+
+No doubt the watch to be set on the Countess might lead to something
+yet—something to bring first plausible suspicion to a triumphant issue;
+but the examination of the other occupants of the car should not be
+allowed to slacken on that account. The Countess might have some
+confederate among them—this pestilent English General, perhaps, who had
+made himself so conspicuous in her defence; or some one of them might
+throw light upon her movements, upon her conduct during the journey.
+
+Then, with a spasm of self-reproach, M. Floçon remembered that two
+distinct suggestions had been made to him by two of the travellers, and
+that, so far, he had neglected them. One was the significant hint from
+the Italian that he could materially help the inquiry. The other was
+the General’s sneering assertion that the train had not continued its
+journey uninterruptedly between Laroche and Paris.
+
+Consulting the Judge, and laying these facts before him, it was agreed
+that the Italian’s offer seemed the most important, and he was
+accordingly called in next.
+
+“Who and what are you?” asked the Judge, carelessly, but the answer
+roused him at once to intense interest, and he could not quite resist a
+glance of reproach at M. Floçon.
+
+“My name I have given you—Natale Ripaldi. I am a detective officer
+belonging to the Roman police.”
+
+“What!” cried M. Floçon, colouring deeply. “This is unheard of. Why in
+the name of all the devils have you withheld this most astonishing
+statement until now?”
+
+“Monsieur surely remembers. I told him half an hour ago I had something
+important to communicate—”
+
+“Yes, yes, of course. But why were you so reticent. Good Heavens!”
+
+“Monsieur was not so encouraging that I felt disposed to force on him
+what I knew he would have to hear in due course.”
+
+“It is monstrous—quite abominable, and shall not end here. Your
+superiors shall hear of your conduct,” went on the Chief, hotly.
+
+“They will also hear, and, I think, listen to my version of the
+story,—that I offered you fairly, and at the first opportunity, all the
+information I had, and that you refused to accept it.”
+
+“You should have persisted. It was your manifest duty. You are an
+officer of the law, or you say you are.”
+
+“Pray telegraph at once, if you think fit, to Rome, to the police
+authorities, and you will find that Natale Ripaldi—your humble
+servant—travelled by the through express with their knowledge and
+authority. And here are my credentials, my official card, some official
+letters—”
+
+“And what, in a word, have you to tell us?”
+
+“I can tell you who the murdered man was.”
+
+“We know that already.”
+
+“Possibly; but only his name, I apprehend. I know his profession, his
+business, his object in travelling, for I was appointed to watch and
+follow him. That is why I am here.”
+
+“Was he a suspicious character, then? A criminal?”
+
+“At any rate he was absconding from Rome, with valuables.”
+
+“A thief, in fact?”
+
+The Italian put out the palms of his hands with a gesture of doubt and
+deprecation.
+
+“Thief is a hard, ugly word. That which he was removing was, or had
+been, his own property.”
+
+“Tut, tut! do be more explicit and get on,” interrupted the little
+Chief, testily.
+
+“I ask nothing better; but if questions are put to me—”
+
+The Judge interposed.
+
+“Give us your story. We can interrogate you afterwards.”
+
+“The murdered man is Francis A. Quadling, of the firm of Correse &
+Quadling, bankers, in the Via Condotti, Rome. It was an old house, once
+of good, of the highest repute, but of late years it has fallen into
+difficulties. Its financial soundness was doubted in certain circles,
+and the Government was warned that a great scandal was imminent. So the
+matter was handed over to the police, and I was directed to make
+inquiries, and to keep my eye on this Quadling”—he jerked his thumb
+towards the platform, where the body might be supposed to be.
+
+“This Quadling was the only surviving partner. He was well known and
+liked in Rome, indeed, many who heard the adverse reports disbelieved
+them, I myself among the number. But my duty was plain—”
+
+“Naturally,” echoed the fiery little detective.
+
+“I made it my business to place the banker under surveillance, to learn
+his habits, his ways of life, see who were his friends, the houses he
+visited. I soon knew much that I wanted to know, although not all. But
+one fact I discovered, and think it right to inform you of it at once.
+He was on intimate terms with La Castagneto—at least, he frequently
+called upon her.”
+
+“La Castagneto! Do you mean the Countess of that name, who was a
+passenger in the sleeper?”
+
+“Beyond doubt! it is she I mean.” The officials looked at each other
+eagerly, and M. Beaumont le Hardi quickly turned over the sheets on
+which the Countess’s evidence was recorded.
+
+She had denied acquaintance with this murdered man, Quadling, and here
+was positive evidence that they were on intimate terms!
+
+“He was at her house on the very day we all left Rome—in the evening,
+towards dusk. The Countess had an apartment in the Via Margutta, and
+when he left her he returned to his own place in the Condotti, entered
+the bank, stayed half an hour, then came out with one hand-bag and rug,
+called a cab, and was driven straight to the railway station.”
+
+“And you followed?”
+
+“Of course. When I saw him walk straight to the sleeping-car, and ask
+the conductor for 7 and 8, I knew that his plans had been laid, and
+that he was on the point of leaving Rome secretly. When, presently, La
+Castagneto also arrived, I concluded that she was in his confidence,
+and that possibly they were eloping together.”
+
+“Why did you not arrest him?”
+
+“I had no authority, even if I had had the time. Although I was ordered
+to watch the Signor Quadling, I had no warrant for his arrest. But I
+decided on the spur of the moment what course I should take. It seemed
+to be the only one, and that was to embark in the same train and stick
+close to my man.”
+
+“You informed your superiors, I suppose?”
+
+“Pardon me, monsieur,” said the Italian blandly to the Chief, who asked
+the question, “but have you any right to inquire into my conduct
+towards my superiors? In all that affects the murder I am at your
+orders, but in this other matter it is between me and them.”
+
+“Ta, ta, ta! They will tell us if you will not. And you had better be
+careful, lest you obstruct justice. Speak out, sir, and beware. What
+did you intend to do?”
+
+“To act according to circumstances. If my suspicions were confirmed—”
+
+“What suspicions?”
+
+“Why—that this banker was carrying off any large sum in cash, notes,
+securities, as in effect he was.”
+
+“Ah! You know that? How?”
+
+“By my own eyes. I looked into his compartment once and saw him in the
+act of counting them over, a great quantity, in fact—”
+
+Again the officials looked at each other significantly. They had got at
+last to a motive for the crime.
+
+“And that, of course, would have justified his arrest?”
+
+“Exactly. I proposed, directly we arrived in Paris, to claim the
+assistance of your police and take him into custody. But his fate
+interposed.”
+
+There was a pause, a long pause, for another important point had been
+reached in the inquiry: the motive for the murder had been made clear,
+and with it the presumption against the Countess gained terrible
+strength.
+
+But there was more, perhaps, to be got out of this dark-visaged Italian
+detective, who had already proved so useful an ally.
+
+“One or two words more,” said the Judge to Ripaldi. “During the
+journey, now, did you have any conversation with this Quadling?”
+
+“None. He kept very much to himself.”
+
+“You saw him, I suppose, at the restaurants?”
+
+“Yes, at Modane and Laroche.”
+
+“But did not speak to him?”
+
+“Not a word.”
+
+“Had he any suspicion, do you think, as to who you were?”
+
+“Why should he? He did not know me. I had taken pains he should never
+see me.”
+
+“Did he speak to any other passenger?”
+
+“Very little. To the Countess. Yes, once or twice, I think, to her
+maid.”
+
+“Ah! that maid. Did you notice her at all? She has not been seen. It is
+strange. She seems to have disappeared.”
+
+“To have run away, in fact?” suggested Ripaldi, with a queer smile.
+
+“Well, at least she is not here with her mistress. Can you offer any
+explanation of that?”
+
+“She was perhaps afraid. The Countess and she were very good friends, I
+think. On better, more familiar terms, than is usual between mistress
+and maid.”
+
+“The maid knew something?”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, it is only an idea. But I give it you for what it is
+worth.”
+
+“Well, well, this maid—what was she like?”
+
+“Tall, dark, good-looking, not too reserved. She made other friends—the
+porter and the English Colonel. I saw the last speaking to her. I spoke
+to her myself.”
+
+“What can have become of her?” said the Judge.
+
+“Would M. le Juge like me to go in search of her? That is, if you have
+no more questions to ask, no wish to detain me further?”
+
+“We will consider that, and let you know in a moment, if you will wait
+outside.”
+
+And then, when alone, the officials deliberated.
+
+It was a good offer, the man knew her appearance, he was in possession
+of all the facts, he could be trusted—
+
+“Ah, but can he, though?” queried the detective. “How do we know he has
+told us truth? What guarantee have we of his loyalty, his good faith?
+What if he is also concerned in the crime—has some guilty knowledge?
+What if he killed Quadling himself, or was an accomplice before or
+after the fact?”
+
+“All these are possibilities, of course, but—pardon me, dear
+colleague—a little far-fetched, eh?” said the Judge. “Why not utilize
+this man? If he betrays us—serves us ill—if we had reason to lay hands
+on him again, he could hardly escape us.”
+
+“Let him go, and send some one with him,” said the Commissary, the
+first practical suggestion he had yet made.
+
+“Excellent!” cried the Judge. “You have another man here, Chief; let
+him go with this Italian.”
+
+They called in Ripaldi and told him, “We will accept your services,
+monsieur, and you can begin your search at once. In what direction do
+you propose to begin?”
+
+“Where has her mistress gone?”
+
+“How do you know she has gone?”
+
+“At least, she is no longer with us out there. Have you arrested her—or
+what?”
+
+“No, she is still at large, but we have our eye upon her. She has gone
+to her hotel—the Madagascar, off the Grands Boulevards.”
+
+“Then it is there that I shall look for the maid. No doubt she preceded
+her mistress to the hotel, or she will join her there very shortly.”
+
+“You would not make yourself known, of course? They might give you the
+slip. You have no authority to detain them, not in France.”
+
+“I should take my precautions, and I can always appeal to the police.”
+
+“Exactly. That would be your proper course. But you might lose valuable
+time, a great opportunity, and we wish to guard against that, so we
+shall associate one of our own people with you in your proceedings.”
+
+“Oh! very well, if you wish. It will, no doubt, be best.” The Italian
+readily assented, but a shrewd listener might have guessed from the
+tone of his voice that the proposal was not exactly pleasing to him.
+
+“I will call in Block,” said the Chief, and the second detective
+inspector appeared to take his instructions.
+
+He was a stout, stumpy little man, with a barrel-like figure, greatly
+emphasized by the short frock coat he wore; he had smallish pig’s eyes
+buried deep in a fat face, and his round, chubby cheeks hung low over
+his turned-down collar.
+
+“This gentleman,” went on the Chief, indicating Ripaldi, “is a member
+of the Roman police, and has been so obliging as to offer us his
+services. You will accompany him, in the first instance, to the Hôtel
+Madagascar. Put yourself in communication with Galipaud, who is there
+on duty.”
+
+“Would it not be sufficient if I made myself known to M. Galipaud?”
+suggested the Italian. “I have seen him here, I should recognize him—”
+
+“That is not so certain; he may have changed his appearance. Besides,
+he does not know the latest developments, and might not be very
+cordial.”
+
+“You might write me a few lines to take to him.”
+
+“I think not. We prefer to send Block,” replied the Chief, briefly and
+decidedly. He did not like this pertinacity, and looked at his
+colleagues as though he sought their concurrence in altering the
+arrangements for the Italian’s mission. It might be wiser to detain him
+still.
+
+“It was only to save trouble that I made the suggestion,” hastily put
+in Ripaldi. “Naturally I am in your hands. And if I do not meet with
+the maid at the hotel, I may have to look further, in which case
+Monsieur—Block? thank you—would no doubt render valuable assistance.”
+
+This speech restored confidence, and a few minutes later the two
+detectives, already excellent friends from the freemasonry of a common
+craft, left the station in a closed cab.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+“What next?” asked the Judge.
+
+“That pestilent English officer, if you please, M. le Juge,” said the
+detective. “That fire-eating, swashbuckling soldier, with his
+blustering barrack-room ways. I long to come to close quarters with
+him. He ridiculed me, taunted me, said I knew nothing—we will see, we
+will see.”
+
+“In fact, you wish to interrogate him yourself. Very well. Let us have
+him in.”
+
+When Sir Charles Collingham entered, he included the three officials in
+one cold, stiff bow, waited a moment, and then, finding he was not
+offered a chair, said with studied politeness:
+
+“I presume I may sit down?”
+
+“Pardon. Of course; pray be seated,” said the Judge, hastily, and
+evidently a little ashamed of himself.
+
+“Ah! thanks. Do you object?” went on the General, taking out a silver
+cigarette-case. “May I offer one?” He handed round the box affably.
+
+“We do not smoke on duty,” answered the Chief, rudely. “Nor is smoking
+permitted in a court of justice.”
+
+“Come, come, I wish to show no disrespect. But I cannot recognize this
+as a court of justice, and I think, if you will forgive me, that I
+shall take three whiffs. It may help me keep my temper.”
+
+He was evidently making game of them. There was no symptom remaining of
+the recent effervescence when he was acting as the Countess’s champion,
+and he was perfectly—nay, insolently calm and self-possessed.
+
+“You call yourself General Collingham?” went on the Chief.
+
+“I do not call myself. I am General Sir Charles Collingham, of the
+British Army.”
+
+“Retired?”
+
+“No, I am still on the active list.”
+
+“These points will have to be verified.”
+
+“With all my heart. You have already sent to the British Embassy?”
+
+“Yes, but no one has come,” answered the detective, contemptuously.
+
+“If you disbelieve me, why do you question me?”
+
+“It is our duty to question you, and yours to answer. If not, we have
+means to make you. You are suspected, inculpated in a terrible crime,
+and your whole attitude is—is—objectionable—unworthy—disgr—”
+
+“Gently, gently, my dear colleague,” interposed the Judge. “If you will
+permit me, I will take up this. And you, M. le Général, I am sure you
+cannot wish to impede or obstruct us; we represent the law of this
+country.”
+
+“Have I done so, M. le Juge?” answered the General, with the utmost
+courtesy, as he threw away his half-burned cigarette.
+
+“No, no. I do not imply that in the least. I only entreat you, as a
+good and gallant gentleman, to meet us in a proper spirit and give us
+your best help.”
+
+“Indeed, I am quite ready. If there has been any unpleasantness, it has
+surely not been of my making, but rather of that little man there.” The
+General pointed to M. Floçon rather contemptuously, and nearly started
+a fresh disturbance.
+
+“Well, well, let us say no more of that, and proceed to business. I
+understand,” said the Judge, after fingering a few pages of the
+dispositions in front of him, “that you are a friend of the Contessa di
+Castagneto? Indeed, she has told us so herself.”
+
+“It was very good of her to call me her friend. I am proud to hear she
+so considers me.”
+
+“How long have you known her?”
+
+“Four or five months. Since the beginning of the last winter season in
+Rome.”
+
+“Did you frequent her house?”
+
+“If you mean, was I permitted to call on her on friendly terms, yes.”
+
+“Did you know all her friends?”
+
+“How can I answer that? I know whom I met there from time to time.”
+
+“Exactly. Did you often meet among them a Signor—Quadling?”
+
+“Quadling—Quadling? I cannot say that I have. The name is familiar
+somehow, but I cannot recall the man.”
+
+“Have you never heard of the Roman bankers, Correse & Quadling?”
+
+“Ah, of course. Although I have had no dealing with them. Certainly I
+have never met Mr. Quadling.”
+
+“Not at the Countess’s?”
+
+“Never—of that I am quite sure.”
+
+“And yet we have had positive evidence that he was a constant visitor
+there.”
+
+“It is perfectly incomprehensible to me. Not only have I never met him,
+but I have never heard the Countess mention his name.”
+
+“It will surprise you, then, to be told that he called at her apartment
+in the Via Margutta on the very evening of her departure from Rome.
+Called, was admitted, was closeted with her for more than an hour.”
+
+“I am surprised, astounded. I called there myself about four in the
+afternoon to offer my services for the journey, and I too stayed till
+after five. I can hardly believe it.”
+
+“I have more surprises for you, General. What will you think when I
+tell you that this very Quadling—this friend, acquaintance, call him
+what you please, but at least intimate enough to pay her a visit on the
+eve of a long journey—was the man found murdered in the sleeping-car?”
+
+“Can it be possible? Are you sure?” cried Sir Charles, almost starting
+from his chair. “And what do you deduce from all this? What do you
+imply? An accusation against that lady? Absurd!”
+
+“I respect your chivalrous desire to stand up for a lady who calls you
+her friend, but we are officials first, and sentiment cannot be
+permitted to influence us. We have good reasons for suspecting that
+lady. I tell you that frankly, and trust to you as a soldier and man of
+honour not to abuse the confidence reposed in you.”
+
+“May I not know those reasons?”
+
+“Because she was in the car—the only woman, you understand—between
+Laroche and Paris.”
+
+“Do you suspect a female hand, then?” asked the General, evidently much
+interested and impressed.
+
+“That is so, although I am exceeding my duty in revealing this.”
+
+“And you are satisfied that this lady, a refined, delicate person in
+the best society, of the highest character,—believe me, I know that to
+be the case,—whom you yet suspect of an atrocious crime, was the only
+female in the car?”
+
+“Obviously. Who else? What other woman could possibly have been in the
+car? No one got in at Laroche; the train never stopped till it reached
+Paris.”
+
+“On that last point at least you are quite mistaken, I assure you. Why
+not upon the other also?”
+
+“The train stopped?” interjected the detective. “Why has no one told us
+that?”
+
+“Possibly because you never asked. But it is nevertheless the fact.
+Verify it. Every one will tell you the same.”
+
+The detective himself hurried to the door and called in the porter. He
+was within his rights, of course, but the action showed distrust, at
+which the General only smiled, but he laughed outright when the still
+stupid and half-dazed porter, of course, corroborated the statement at
+once.
+
+“At whose instance was the train pulled up?” asked the detective, and
+the Judge nodded his head approvingly.
+
+To know that would fix fresh suspicion.
+
+But the porter could not answer the question.
+
+Some one had rung the alarm-bell—so at least the conductor had
+declared; otherwise they should not have stopped. Yet he, the porter,
+had not done so, nor did any passenger come forward to admit giving the
+signal. But there had been a halt. Yes, assuredly.
+
+“This is a new light,” the Judge confessed. “Do you draw any conclusion
+from it?” he went on to ask the General.
+
+“That is surely your business. I have only elicited the fact to
+disprove your theory. But if you wish, I will tell you how it strikes
+me.”
+
+The Judge bowed assent.
+
+“The bare fact that the train was halted would mean little. That would
+be the natural act of a timid or excitable person involved indirectly
+in such a catastrophe. But to disavow the act starts suspicion. The
+fair inference is that there was some reason, an unavowable reason, for
+halting the train.”
+
+“And that reason would be—”
+
+“You must see it without my assistance, surely! Why, what else but to
+afford some one an opportunity to leave the car.”
+
+“But how could that be? You would have seen that person, some of you,
+especially at such a critical time. The aisle would be full of people,
+both exits were thus practically overlooked.”
+
+“My idea is—it is only an idea, understand—that the person had already
+left the car—that is to say, the interior of the car.”
+
+“Escaped how? Where? What do you mean?”
+
+“Escaped through the open window of the compartment where you found the
+murdered man.”
+
+“You noticed the open window, then?” quickly asked the detective. “When
+was that?”
+
+“Directly I entered the compartment at the first alarm. It occurred to
+me at once that some one might have gone through it.”
+
+“But no woman could have done it. To climb out of an express train
+going at top speed would be an impossible feat for a woman,” said the
+detective, doggedly.
+
+“Why, in God’s name, do you still harp upon the woman? Why should it be
+a woman more than a man?”
+
+“Because”—it was the Judge who spoke, but he paused a moment in
+deference to a gesture of protest from M. Floçon. The little detective
+was much concerned at the utter want of reticence displayed by his
+colleague.
+
+“Because,” went on the Judge with decision—“because this was found in
+the compartment;” and he held out the piece of lace and the scrap of
+beading for the General’s inspection, adding quickly, “You have seen
+these, or one of them, or something like them before. I am sure of it;
+I call upon you; I demand—no, I appeal to your sense of honour, Sir
+Collingham. Tell me, please, exactly what you know.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The General sat for a time staring hard at the bit of torn lace and the
+broken beads. Then he spoke out firmly:
+
+“It is my duty to withhold nothing. It is not the lace. That I could
+not swear to; for me—and probably for most men—two pieces of lace are
+very much the same. But I think I have seen these beads, or something
+exactly like them, before.”
+
+“Where? When?”
+
+“They formed part of the trimming of a mantle worn by the Contessa di
+Castagneto.”
+
+“Ah!” it was the same interjection uttered simultaneously by the three
+Frenchmen, but each had a very different note; in the Judge it was deep
+interest, in the detective triumph, in the Commissary indignation, as
+when he caught a criminal red-handed.
+
+“Did she wear it on the journey?” continued the Judge.
+
+“As to that I cannot say.”
+
+“Come, come, General, you were with her constantly; you must be able to
+tell us. We insist on being told.” This fiercely, from the now jubilant
+M. Floçon.
+
+“I repeat that I cannot say. To the best of my recollection, the
+Countess wore a long travelling cloak—an ulster, as we call them. The
+jacket with those bead ornaments may have been underneath. But if I
+have seen them,—as I believe I have,—it was not during this journey.”
+
+Here the Judge whispered to M. Floçon, “The searcher did not discover
+any second mantle.”
+
+“How do we know the woman examined thoroughly?” he replied. “Here, at
+least, is direct evidence as to the beads. At last the net is drawing
+round this fine Countess.”
+
+“Well, at any rate,” said the detective aloud, returning to the
+General, “these beads were found in the compartment of the murdered
+man. I should like that explained, please.”
+
+“By me? How can I explain it? And the fact does not bear upon what we
+were considering, as to whether any one had left the car.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“The Countess, as we know, never left the car. As to her entering this
+particular compartment,—at any previous time,—it is highly improbable.
+Indeed, it is rather insulting her to suggest it.”
+
+“She and this Quadling were close friends.”
+
+“So you say. On what evidence I do not know, but I dispute it.”
+
+“Then how could the beads get there? They were her property, worn by
+her.”
+
+“Once, I admit, but not necessarily on this journey. Suppose she had
+given the mantle away—to her maid, for instance; I believe ladies often
+pass on their things to their maids.”
+
+“It is all pure presumption, a mere theory. This maid—she has not as
+yet been imported into the discussion.”
+
+“Then I would suggest that you do so without delay. She is to my mind
+a—well, rather a curious person.”
+
+“You know her—spoke to her?”
+
+“I know her, in a way. I had seen her in the Via Margutta, and I nodded
+to her when she came first into the car.”
+
+“And on the journey—you spoke to her frequently?”
+
+“I? Oh, dear, no, not at all. I noticed her, certainly; I could not
+help it, and perhaps I ought to tell her mistress. She seemed to make
+friends a little too readily with people.”
+
+“As for instance—?”
+
+“With the porter to begin with. I saw them together at Laroche, in the
+buffet at the bar; and that Italian, the man who was in here before me;
+indeed, with the murdered man. She seemed to know them all.”
+
+“Do you imply that the maid might be of use in this inquiry?”
+
+“Most assuredly I do. As I tell you, she was constantly in and out of
+the car, and more or less intimate with several of the passengers.”
+
+“Including her mistress, the Countess,” put in M. Floçon.
+
+The General laughed pleasantly.
+
+“Most ladies are, I presume, on intimate terms with their maids. They
+say no man is a hero to his valet. It is the same, I suppose, with the
+other sex.”
+
+“So intimate,” went on the little detective, with much malicious
+emphasis, “that now the maid has disappeared lest she might be asked
+inconvenient questions about her mistress.”
+
+“Disappeared? You are sure?”
+
+“She cannot be found, that is all we know.”
+
+“It is as I thought, then. She it was who left the car!” cried Sir
+Charles, with so much vehemence that the officials were startled out of
+their dignified reserve, and shouted back almost in a breath: “Explain
+yourself. Quick, quick. What in God’s name do you mean?”
+
+“I had my suspicions from the first, and I will tell you why. At
+Laroche the car emptied, as you may have heard; every one except the
+Countess, at least, went over to the restaurant for early coffee; I
+with the rest. I was one of the first to finish, and I strolled back to
+the platform to get a few whiffs of a cigarette. At that moment I saw,
+or thought I saw, the end of a skirt disappearing into the
+sleeping-car. I concluded it was this maid, Hortense, who was taking
+her mistress a cup of coffee. Then my brother came up, we exchanged a
+few words, and entered the car together.”
+
+“By the same door as that through which you had seen the skirt pass?”
+
+“No, by the other. My brother went back to his berth, but I paused in
+the corridor to finish my cigarette after the train had gone on. By
+this time every one but myself had returned to his berth, and I was on
+the point of lying down again for half an hour, when I distinctly heard
+the handle turned of the compartment I knew to be vacant all through
+the run.”
+
+“That was the one with berths 11 and 12?”
+
+“Probably. It was next to the Countess. Not only was the handle turned,
+but the door partly opened—”
+
+“It was not the porter?”
+
+“Oh, no, he was in his seat,—you know it, at the end of the car,—sound
+asleep, snoring; I could hear him.”
+
+“Did any one come out of the vacant compartment?”
+
+“No; but I was almost certain, I believe I could swear that I saw the
+same skirt, just the hem of it, a black skirt, sway forward beyond the
+door, just for a second. Then all at once the door was closed again
+fast.”
+
+“What did you conclude from this? Or did you think nothing of it?”
+
+“I thought very little. I supposed it was that the maid wished to be
+near her mistress as we were approaching Paris, and I had heard from
+the Countess that the porter had made many difficulties. But you see,
+after what has happened, that there was a reason for stopping the
+train.”
+
+“Quite so,” M. Floçon readily admitted, with a scarcely concealed
+sneer.
+
+He had quite made up his mind now that it was the Countess who had rung
+the alarm-bell, in order to allow of the escape of the maid, her
+confederate and accomplice.
+
+“And you still have an impression that some one—presumably this
+woman—got off the car, somehow, during the stoppage?” he asked.
+
+“I suggest it, certainly. Whether it was or could be so, I must leave
+to your superior judgment.”
+
+“What! A woman climb out like that? Bah! Tell that to some one else!”
+
+“You have, of course, examined the exterior of the car, dear
+colleague?” now said the Judge.
+
+“Assuredly, once, but I will do it again. Still, the outside is quite
+smooth, there is no foot-board. Only an acrobat could succeed in thus
+escaping, and then only at the peril of his life. But a woman—oh, no!
+it is too absurd.”
+
+“With help she might, I think, get up on to the roof,” quickly remarked
+Sir Charles. “I have looked out of the window of my compartment. It
+would be nothing for a man, nor much for a woman if assisted.”
+
+“That we will see for ourselves,” said the detective, ungraciously.
+
+“The sooner the better,” added the Judge, and the whole party rose from
+their chairs, intending to go straight to the car, when the policeman
+on guard appeared at the door, followed close by an English military
+officer in uniform, whom he was trying to keep back, but with no great
+success. It was Colonel Papillon of the Embassy.
+
+“Halloa, Jack! you _are_ a good chap,” cried the General, quickly going
+forward to shake hands. “I was sure you would come.”
+
+“Come, sir! Of course I came. I was just going to an official function,
+as you see, but his Excellency insisted, my horse was at the door, and
+here I am.”
+
+All this was in English, but the attaché turned now to the officials,
+and, with many apologies for his intrusion, suggested that they should
+allow his friend, the General, to return with him to the Embassy when
+they had done with him.
+
+“Of course we will answer for him. He shall remain at your disposal,
+and will appear whenever called upon.” He returned to Sir Charles,
+asking, “You will promise that, sir?”
+
+“Oh, willingly. I had always meant to stay on a bit in Paris. And
+really I should like to see the end of this. But my brother? He must
+get home for next Sunday’s duty. He has nothing to tell, but he would
+come back to Paris at any time if his evidence was wanted.”
+
+The French Judge very obligingly agreed to all these proposals, and two
+more of the detained passengers, making four in all, now left the
+station.
+
+Then the officials proceeded to the car, which still remained as the
+Chief Detective had left it.
+
+Here they soon found how just were the General’s previsions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The three officials went straight to where the still open window showed
+the particular spot to be examined. The exterior of the car was a
+little smirched and stained with the dust of the journey, lying thick
+in parts, and in others there were a few great splotches of mud
+plastered on.
+
+The detective paused for a moment to get a general view, looking, in
+the light of the General’s suggestion, for either hand or foot marks,
+anything like a trace of the passage of a feminine skirt, across the
+dusty surface.
+
+But nothing was to be seen, nothing definite or conclusive at least.
+Only here and there a few lines and scratches that might be
+encouraging, but proved little.
+
+Then the Commissary, drawing nearer, called attention to some
+suspicious spots sprinkled about the window, but above it towards the
+roof.
+
+“What is it?” asked the detective, as his colleague with the point of
+his long fore-finger nail picked at the thin crust on the top of one of
+these spots, disclosing a dark, viscous core.
+
+“I could not swear to it, but I believe it is blood.”
+
+“Blood! Good Heavens!” cried the detective, as he dragged his powerful
+magnifying glass out of his pocket and applied it to the spot. “Look,
+M. le Juge,” he added, after a long and minute examination. “What say
+you?”
+
+“It has that appearance. Only medical evidence can positively decide,
+but I believe it is blood.”
+
+“Now we are on the right track, I feel convinced. Some one fetch a
+ladder.”
+
+One of these curious French ladders, narrow at the top, splayed out at
+the base, was quickly leaned against the car, and the detective ran up,
+using his magnifier as he climbed.
+
+“There is more here, much more, and something like—yes, beyond question
+it is—the print of two hands upon the roof. It was here she climbed.”
+
+“No doubt. I can see it now exactly. She would sit on the window ledge,
+the lower limbs inside the car here and held there. Then with her hands
+she would draw herself up to the roof,” said the Judge.
+
+“But what nerve! what strength of arm!”
+
+“It was life and death. Within the car was more terrible danger. Fear
+will do much in such a case. We all know that. Well! what more?”
+
+By this time the detective had stepped on to the roof of the car.
+
+“More, more, much more! Footprints, as plain as a picture. A woman’s
+feet. Wait, let me follow them to the end,” said he, cautiously
+creeping forward to the end of the car.
+
+A minute or two more, and he rejoined his colleagues on the ground
+level, and, rubbing his hands, declared joyously that it was all
+perfectly clear.
+
+“Dangerous or not, difficult or not, she did it. I have traced her;
+have seen where she must have lain crouching ever so long, followed her
+all along the top of the car, to the end where she got down above the
+little platform exit. Beyond doubt she left the car when it stopped,
+and by arrangement with her confederate.”
+
+“The Countess?”
+
+“Who else?”
+
+“And at a point near Paris. The English General said the halt was
+within twenty minutes’ run of the station.”
+
+“Then it is from that point we must commence our search for her. The
+Italian has gone on the wrong scent.”
+
+“Not necessarily. The maid, we may be sure, will try to communicate
+with her mistress.”
+
+“Still, it would be well to secure her before she can do that,” said
+the Judge. “With all we know now, a sharp interrogation might extract
+some very damaging admissions from her,” went on the detective,
+eagerly. “Who is to go? I have sent away both my assistants. Of course
+I can telephone for another man, or I might go myself.”
+
+“No, no, dear colleague, we cannot spare you just yet. Telephone by all
+means. I presume you would wish to be present at the rest of the
+interrogatories?”
+
+“Certainly, you are right. We may elicit more about this maid. Let us
+call in the porter now. He is said to have had relations with her.
+Something more may be got out of him.”
+
+The more did not amount to much. Groote, the porter, came in, cringing
+and wretched, in the abject state of a man who has lately been drugged
+and is now slowly recovering. Although sharply questioned, he had
+nothing to add to his first story.
+
+“Speak out,” said the Judge, harshly. “Tell us everything plainly and
+promptly, or I shall send you straight to gaol. The order is already
+made out;” and as he spoke, he waved a flimsy bit of paper before him.
+
+“I know nothing,” the porter protested, piteously.
+
+“That is false. We are fully informed and no fools. We are certain that
+no such catastrophe could have occurred without your knowledge or
+connivance.”
+
+“Indeed, gentlemen, indeed—”
+
+“You were drinking with this maid at the buffet at Laroche. You had
+more drink with her, or from her hands, afterwards in the car.”
+
+“No, gentlemen, that is not so. I could not—she was not in the car.”
+
+“We know better. You cannot deceive us. You were her accomplice, and
+the accomplice of her mistress, also, I have no doubt.”
+
+“I declare solemnly that I am quite innocent of all this. I hardly
+remember what happened at Laroche or after. I do not deny the drink at
+the buffet. It was very nasty, I thought, and could not tell why, nor
+why I could not hold my head up when I got back to the car.”
+
+“You went off to sleep at once? Is that what you pretend?”
+
+“It must have been so. Yes. Then I know nothing more, not till I was
+aroused.”
+
+And beyond this, a tale to which he stuck with undeviating persistence,
+they could elicit nothing.
+
+“He is either too clever for us or an absolute idiot and fool,” said
+the Judge, wearily, at last, when Groote had gone out. “We had better
+commit him to Mazas and hold him there in solitary confinement under
+our hands. After a day or two of that he may be less difficult.”
+
+“It is quite clear he was drugged, that the maid put opium or laudanum
+into his drink at Laroche.”
+
+“And enough of it apparently, for he says he went off to sleep directly
+he returned to the car,” the Judge remarked.
+
+“He says so. But he must have had a second dose, or why was the vial
+found on the ground by his seat?” asked the Chief, thoughtfully, as
+much of himself as of the others.
+
+“I cannot believe in a second dose. How was it administered—by whom? It
+was laudanum, and could only be given in a drink. He says he had no
+second drink. And by whom? The maid? He says he did not see the maid
+again.”
+
+“Pardon me, M. le Juge, but do you not give too much credibility to the
+porter? For me, his evidence is tainted, and I hardly believe a word of
+it. Did he not tell me at first he had not seen this maid after
+Amberieux at 8 P.M.? Now he admits that he was drinking with her at the
+buffet at Laroche. It is all a tissue of lies, his losing the
+pocket-book and his papers too. There is something to conceal. Even his
+sleepiness, his stupidity, are likely to have been assumed.”
+
+“I do not think he is acting; he has not the ability to deceive us like
+that.”
+
+“Well, then, what if the Countess took him the second drink?”
+
+“Oh! oh! That is the purest conjecture. There is nothing whatever to
+suggest or support that.”
+
+“Then how explain the finding of the vial near the porter’s seat?”
+
+“May it not have been dropped there on purpose?” put in the Commissary,
+with another flash of intelligence.
+
+“On purpose?” queried the detective, crossly, foreseeing an answer that
+would not please him.
+
+“On purpose to bring suspicion on the lady?”
+
+“I don’t see it in that light. That would imply that she was not in the
+plot, and plot there certainly was; everything points to it. The
+drugging, the open window, the maid’s escape.”
+
+“A plot, no doubt, but organized by whom? These two women only? Could
+either of them have struck the fatal blow? Hardly. Women have the wit
+to conceive, but neither courage nor brute force to execute. There was
+a man in this, rest assured.”
+
+“Granted. But who? That fire-eating Sir Collingham?” quickly asked the
+detective, giving rein once more to his hatred.
+
+“That is not a solution that commends itself to me, I must confess,”
+declared the Judge. “The General’s conduct has been blameworthy and
+injudicious, but he is not of the stuff that makes criminals.”
+
+“Who, then? The porter? No? The clergyman? No? The French
+gentlemen?—well, we have not examined them yet; but from what I saw at
+the first cursory glance, I am not disposed to suspect them.”
+
+“What of that Italian?” asked the Commissary.
+
+“Are you sure of him? His looks did not please me greatly, and he was
+very eager to get away from here. What if he takes to his heels?”
+
+“Block is with him,” the Chief put in hastily, with the evident desire
+to stifle an unpleasant misgiving. “We have touch of him if we want
+him, as we may.”
+
+How much they might want him they only realized when they got further
+in their inquiry!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Only the two Frenchmen remained for examination. They had been left to
+the last by pure accident. The exigencies of the inquiry had led to the
+preference of others, but these two well-broken and submissive
+gentlemen made no visible protest. However much they may have chafed
+inwardly at the delay, they knew better than to object; any outburst of
+discontent would, they knew, recoil on themselves. Not only were they
+perfectly patient now when summoned before the officers of justice,
+they were most eager to give every assistance to the law, to go beyond
+the mere letter, and, if needs be, volunteer information.
+
+The first called in was the elder, M. Anatole Lafolay, a true Parisian
+_bourgeois_, fat and comfortable, unctuous in speech, and exceedingly
+deferential.
+
+The story he told was in its main outlines that which we already know,
+but he was further questioned, by the light of the latest facts and
+ideas as now elicited.
+
+The line adroitly taken by the Judge was to get some evidence of
+collusion and combination among the passengers, especially with
+reference to two of them, the two women of the party. On this important
+point M. Lafolay had something to say.
+
+Asked if he had seen or noticed the lady’s maid on the journey, he
+answered “yes” very decisively and with a smack of the lips, as though
+the sight of this pretty and attractive person had given him
+considerable satisfaction.
+
+“Did you speak to her?”
+
+“Oh, no. I had no opportunity. Besides, she had her own friends—great
+friends, I fancy. I caught her more than once whispering in the corner
+of the car with one of them.”
+
+“And that was—?”
+
+“I think the Italian gentleman; I am almost sure I recognized his
+clothes. I did not see his face, it was turned from me—towards hers,
+and very close, I may be permitted to say.”
+
+“And they were friendly?”
+
+“More than friendly, I should say. Very intimate indeed. I should not
+have been surprised if—when I turned away as a matter of fact—if he did
+not touch, just touch, her red lips. It would have been
+excusable—forgive me, messieurs.”
+
+“Aha! They were so intimate as that? Indeed! And did she reserve her
+favours exclusively for him? Did no one else address her, pay her court
+on the quiet—you understand?”
+
+“I saw her with the porter, I believe, at Laroche, but only then. No,
+the Italian was her chief companion.”
+
+“Did any one else notice the flirtation, do you think?”
+
+“Possibly. There was no secrecy. It was very marked. We could all see.”
+
+“And her mistress too?”
+
+“That I will not say. The lady I saw but little during the journey.”
+
+A few more questions, mainly personal, as to his address, business,
+probable presence in Paris for the next few weeks, and M. Lafolay was
+permitted to depart.
+
+The examination of the younger Frenchman, a smart, alert young man, of
+pleasant, insinuating address, with a quick, inquisitive eye, followed
+the same lines, and was distinctly corroborative on all the points to
+which M. Lafolay spoke. But M. Jules Devaux had something startling to
+impart concerning the Countess.
+
+When asked if he had seen her or spoken to her, he shook his head.
+
+“No; she kept very much to herself,” he said. “I saw her but little,
+hardly at all, except at Modane. She kept her own berth.”
+
+“Where she received her own friends?”
+
+“Oh, beyond doubt. The Englishmen both visited her there, but not the
+Italian.”
+
+“The Italian? Are we to infer that she knew the Italian?”
+
+“That is what I wish to convey. Not on the journey, though. Between
+Rome and Paris she did not seem to know him. It was afterwards; this
+morning, in fact, that I came to the conclusion that there was some
+secret understanding between them.”
+
+“Why do you say that, M. Devaux?” cried the detective, excitedly. “Let
+me urge you and implore you to speak out, and fully. This is of the
+utmost, of the very first, importance.”
+
+“Well, gentlemen, I will tell you. As you are well aware, on arrival at
+this station we were all ordered to leave the car, and marched to the
+waiting-room, out there. As a matter of course, the lady entered first,
+and she was seated when I went in. There was a strong light on her
+face.”
+
+“Was her veil down?”
+
+“Not then. I saw her lower it later, and, as I think, for reasons I
+will presently put before you. Madame has a beautiful face, and I gazed
+at it with sympathy, grieving for her, in fact, in such a trying
+situation; when suddenly I saw a great and remarkable change come over
+it.”
+
+“Of what character?”
+
+“It was a look of horror, disgust, surprise,—a little perhaps of all
+three; I could not quite say which, it faded so quickly and was
+followed by a cold, deathlike pallor. Then almost immediately she
+lowered her veil.”
+
+“Could you form any explanation for what you saw in her face? What
+caused it?”
+
+“Something unexpected, I believe, some shock, or the sight of something
+shocking. That was how it struck me, and so forcibly that I turned to
+look over my shoulder, expecting to find the reason there. And it was.”
+
+“That reason—?”
+
+“Was the entrance of the Italian, who came just behind me. I am certain
+of this; he almost told me so himself, not in words, but the mistakable
+leer he gave her in reply. It was wicked, sardonic, devilish, and
+proved beyond doubt that there was some secret, some guilty secret
+perhaps, between them.”
+
+“And was that all?” cried both the Judge and M. Floçon in a breath,
+leaning forward in their eagerness to hear more.
+
+“For the moment, yes. But I was made so interested, so suspicious by
+this, that I watched the Italian closely, awaiting, expecting further
+developments. They were long in coming; indeed, I am only at the end
+now.”
+
+“Explain, pray, as quickly as possible, and in your own words.”
+
+“It was like this, monsieur. When we were all seated, I looked round,
+and did not at first see our Italian. At last I discovered he had taken
+a back seat, through modesty perhaps, or to be out of observation—how
+was I to know? He sat in the shadow by a door, that, in fact, which
+leads into this room. He was thus in the background, rather out of the
+way, but I could see his eyes glittering in that far-off corner, and
+they were turned in our direction, always fixed upon the lady, you
+understand. She was next me, the whole time.
+
+“Then, as you will remember, monsieur, you called us in one by one, and
+I, with M. Lafolay, was the first to appear before you. When I returned
+to the outer room, the Italian was still staring, but not so fixedly or
+continuously, at the lady. From time to time his eyes wandered towards
+a table near which he sat, and which was just in the gangway or passage
+by which people must pass into your presence.
+
+“There was some reason for this, I felt sure, although I did not
+understand it immediately.
+“Presently I got at the hidden meaning There was a small piece of
+paper, rolled up or crumpled up into a ball, lying upon this table, and
+the Italian wished, nay, was desperately anxious, to call the lady’s
+attention to it. If I had had any doubt of this, it was quite removed
+after the man had gone into the inner room. As he left us, he turned
+his head over his shoulder significantly and nodded very slightly, but
+still perceptibly, at the ball of paper.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, I was now satisfied in my own mind that this was some
+artful attempt of his to communicate with the lady, and had she fallen
+in with it, I should have immediately informed you, the proper
+authorities. But whether from stupidity, dread, disinclination, a
+direct, definite refusal to have any dealings with this man, the lady
+would not—at any rate did not—pick up the ball, as she might have done
+easily when she in her turn passed the table on her way to your
+presence.
+
+“I have no doubt it was thrown there for her, and probably you will
+agree with me. But it takes two to make a game of this sort, and the
+lady would not join. Neither on leaving the room nor on returning would
+she take up the missive.”
+
+“And what became of it, then?” asked the detective in breathless
+excitement. “I have it here.” M. Devaux opened the palm of his hand and
+displayed the scrap of paper in the hollow rolled up into a small tight
+ball.
+
+“When and how did you become possessed of it?”
+
+“I got it only just now, when I was called in here. Before that I could
+not move. I was tied to my chair, practically, and ordered strictly not
+to move.”
+
+“Perfectly. Monsieur’s conduct has been admirable. And now tell us—what
+does it contain? Have you looked at it?”
+
+“By no means. It is just as I picked it up. Will you gentlemen take it,
+and if you think fit, tell me what is there? Some writing—a message of
+some sort, or I am greatly mistaken.”
+
+“Yes, here are words written in pencil,” said the detective, unrolling
+the paper, which he handed on to the Judge, who read the contents
+aloud—
+
+“Be careful. Say nothing. If you betray me, you will be lost too.”
+
+A long silence followed, broken first by the Judge, who said at last
+solemnly to Devaux:
+
+“Monsieur, in the name of justice I beg to thank you most warmly. You
+have acted with admirable tact and judgment, and have rendered us
+invaluable assistance. Have you anything further to tell us?”
+
+“No, gentlemen. That is all. And you—you have no more questions to ask?
+Then I presume I may withdraw?”
+
+Beyond doubt it had been reserved for the last witness to produce facts
+that constituted the very essence of the inquiry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The examination was now over, and, the dispositions having been drawn
+up and signed, the investigating officials remained for some time in
+conference.
+
+“It lies with those three, of course—the two women and the Italian.
+They are jointly, conjointly concerned, although the exact degrees of
+guilt cannot quite be apportioned,” said the detective.
+
+“And all three are at large!” added the Judge.
+
+“If you will issue warrants for arrest, M. le Juge, we can take
+them—two of them at any rate—when we choose.”
+
+“That should be at once,” remarked the Commissary, eager, as usual, for
+decisive action.
+
+“Very well. Let us proceed in that way. Prepare the warrants,” said the
+Judge, turning to his clerk. “And you,” he went on, addressing M.
+Floçon, “dear colleague, will you see to their execution? Madame is at
+the Hôtel Madagascar; that will be easy. The Italian Ripaldi we shall
+hear of through your inspector Block. As for the maid, Hortense
+Petitpré, we must search for her. That too, sir, you will of course
+undertake?”
+
+“I will charge myself with it, certainly. My man should be here by now,
+and I will instruct him at once. Ask for him,” said M. Floçon to the
+guard whom he called in.
+
+“The inspector is there,” said the guard, pointing to the outer room.
+“He has just returned.”
+
+“Returned? You mean arrived.”
+
+“No, monsieur, returned. It is Block, who left an hour or more ago.”
+
+“Block? Then something has happened—he has some special information,
+some great news! Shall we see him, M. le Juge?”
+
+When Block appeared, it was evident that something had gone wrong with
+him. His face wore a look of hot, flurried excitement, and his manner
+was one of abject, cringing self-abasement.
+
+“What is it?” asked the little Chief, sharply. “You are alone. Where is
+your man?”
+
+“Alas, monsieur! how shall I tell you? He has gone—disappeared! I have
+lost him!”
+
+“Impossible! You cannot mean it! Gone, now, just when we most want him?
+Never!”
+
+“It is so, unhappily.”
+
+“Idiot! _Triple_ idiot! You shall be dismissed, discharged from this
+hour. You are a disgrace to the force.” M. Floçon raved furiously at
+his abashed subordinate, blaming him a little too harshly and unfairly,
+forgetting that until quite recently there had been no strong suspicion
+against the Italian. We are apt at times to expect others to be
+intuitively possessed of knowledge that has only come to us at a much
+later date.
+
+“How was it? Explain. Of course you have been drinking. It is that, or
+your great gluttony. You were beguiled into some eating-house.”
+
+“Monsieur, you shall hear the exact truth. When we started more than an
+hour ago, our fiacre took the usual route, by the Quais and along the
+riverside. My gentleman made himself most pleasant.”
+
+“No doubt,” growled the Chief.
+
+“Offered me an excellent cigar, and talked—not about the affair, you
+understand—but of Paris, the theatres, the races, Longchamps, Auteuil,
+the grand restaurants. He knew everything, all Paris, like his pocket.
+I was much surprised, but he told me his business often brought him
+here. He had been employed to follow up several great Italian
+criminals, and had made a number of important arrests in Paris.”
+
+“Get on, get on! come to the essential.”
+
+“Well, in the middle of the journey, when we were about the Pont Henri
+Quatre, he said, ‘Figure to yourself, my friend, that it is now near
+noon, that nothing has passed my lips since before daylight at Laroche.
+What say you? Could you eat a mouthful, just a scrap on the thumb-nail?
+Could you?’”
+
+“And you—greedy, gormandizing beast!—you agreed?”
+
+“My faith, monsieur, I too was hungry. It was my regular hour. Well—at
+any rate, for my sins I accepted. We entered the first restaurant, that
+of the ‘Reunited Friends,’ you know it, perhaps, monsieur? A good
+house, especially noted for tripe _à la mode de Caen_.” In spite of his
+anguish, Block smacked his fat lips at the thought of this most
+succulent but very greasy dish.
+
+“How often must I tell you to get on?”
+
+“Forgive me, monsieur, but it is all part of my story. We had oysters,
+two dozen Marennes, and a glass or two of Chablis; then a good portion
+of tripe, and with them a bottle, only one, monsieur, of Pontet Canet;
+after that a beefsteak with potatoes and a little Burgundy, then a rum
+omelet.”
+
+“Great Heavens! you should be the fat man in a fair, not an agent of
+the Detective Bureau.”
+
+“It was all this that helped me to my destruction. He ate, this
+devilish Italian, like three, and I too, I was so hungry,—forgive me,
+sir,—I did my share. But by the time we reached the cheese, a fine,
+ripe Camembert, had our coffee, and one thimbleful of green Chartreuse,
+I was _plein jusqu’au bec_, gorged up to the beak.”
+
+“And what of your duty, your service, pray?”
+
+“I did think of it, monsieur, but then, he, the Italian, was just the
+same as myself. He was a colleague. I had no fear of him, not till the
+very last, when he played me this evil turn. I suspected nothing when
+he brought out his pocketbook,—it was stuffed full, monsieur; I saw
+that and my confidence increased,—called for the reckoning, and paid
+with an Italian bank-note. The waiter looked doubtful at the foreign
+money, and went out to consult the manager. A minute after, my man got
+up, saying:
+
+“‘There may be some trouble about changing that bank-note. Excuse me
+one moment, pray.’ He went out, monsieur, and piff-paff, he was no more
+to be seen.”
+
+“Ah, _nigaud_ (ass), you are too foolish to live! Why did you not
+follow him? Why let him out of your sight?”
+
+“But, monsieur, I was not to know, was I? I was to accompany him, not
+to watch him. I have done wrong, I confess. But then, who was to tell
+he meant to run away?”
+
+M. Floçon could not deny the justice of this defence. It was only now,
+at the eleventh hour, that the Italian had become inculpated, and the
+question of his possible anxiety to escape had never been considered.
+
+“He was so artful,” went on Block in further extenuation of his
+offence. “He left everything behind. His overcoat, stick, this book—his
+own private memorandum-book seemingly—”
+
+“Book? Hand it me,” said the Chief, and when it came into his hands he
+began to turn over the leaves hurriedly.
+
+It was a small brass-bound note-book or diary, and was full of close
+writing in pencil.
+
+“I do not understand, not more than a word here and there. It is no
+doubt Italian. Do you know that language, M. le Juge?”
+
+“Not perfectly, but I can read it. Allow me.”
+
+He also turned over the pages, pausing to read a passage here and
+there, and nodding his head from time to time, evidently struck with
+the importance of the matter recorded.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Floçon continued an angry conversation with his offending
+subordinate.
+
+“You will have to find him, Block, and that speedily, within
+twenty-four hours,—to-day, indeed,—or I will break you like a stick,
+and send you into the gutter. Of course, such a consummate ass as you
+have proved yourself would not think of searching the restaurant or the
+immediate neighbourhood, or of making inquiries as to whether he had
+been seen, or as to which way he had gone?”
+
+“Pardon me, monsieur is too hard on me. I have been unfortunate, a
+victim to circumstances, still I believe I know my duty. Yes, I made
+inquiries, and, what is more, I heard of him.”
+
+“Where? how?” asked the Chief, gruffly, but obviously much interested.
+
+“He never spoke to the manager, but walked out and let the change go.
+It was a note for a hundred _lire_, a hundred francs, and the
+restaurant bill was no more than seventeen francs.”
+
+“Hah! that is greatly against him indeed.”
+
+“He was much pressed, in a great hurry. Directly he crossed the
+threshold he called the first cab and was driving away, but he was
+stopped—”
+
+“The devil! Why did they not keep him, then?”
+
+“Stopped, but only for a moment, and accosted by a woman.”
+
+“A woman?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur. They exchanged but three words. He wished to pass on,
+to leave her, she would not consent, then they both got into the cab
+and were driven away together.”
+
+The officials were now listening with all ears.
+
+“Tell me,” said the Chief, “quick, this woman—what was she like? Did
+you get her description?”
+
+“Tall, slight, well formed, dressed all in black. Her face—it was a
+policeman who saw her, and he said she was good-looking, dark,
+brunette, black hair.”
+
+“It is the maid herself!” cried the little Chief, springing up and
+slapping his thigh in exuberant glee. “The maid! the missing maid!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The joy of the Chief of Detectives at having thus come, as he supposed,
+upon the track of the missing maid, Hortense Petitpré, was somewhat
+dashed by the doubts freely expressed by the Judge as to the result of
+any search. Since Block’s return, M. Beaumont le Hardi had developed
+strong symptoms of discontent and disapproval at his colleague’s
+proceedings.
+
+“But if it was this Hortense Petitpré how did she get there, by the
+bridge Henri Quatre, when we thought to find her somewhere down the
+line? It cannot be the same woman.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” interposed Block. “May I say one word?
+I believe I can supply some interesting information about Hortense
+Petitpré. I understand that some one like her was seen here in the
+station not more than an hour ago.”
+
+“_Peste!_ Why were we not told this sooner?” cried the Chief,
+impetuously.
+
+“Who saw her? Did he speak to her? Call him in; let us see how much he
+knows.”
+
+The man was summoned, one of the subordinate railway officials, who
+made a specific report.
+
+Yes, he had seen a tall, slight, neat-looking woman, dressed entirely
+in black, who, according to her account, had arrived at 10.30 by the
+slow local train from Dijon.
+
+“_Fichtre!_” said the Chief, angrily; “and this is the first we have
+heard of it.”
+
+“Monsieur was much occupied at the time, and, indeed, then we had not
+heard of your inquiry.”
+
+“I notified the station-master quite early, two or three hours since,
+about 9 A.M. This is most exasperating!”
+
+“Instructions to look out for this woman have only just reached us,
+monsieur. There were certain formalities, I suppose.”
+
+For once the detective cursed in his heart the red-tape, roundabout
+ways of French officialism.
+
+“Well, well! Tell me about her,” he said, with a resignation he did not
+feel. “Who saw her?”
+
+“I, monsieur. I spoke to her myself. She was on the outside of the
+station, alone, unprotected, in a state of agitation and alarm. I went
+up and offered my services. Then she told me she had come from Dijon,
+that friends who were to have met her had not appeared. I suggested
+that I should put her into a cab and send her to her destination. But
+she was afraid of losing her friends, and preferred to wait.”
+
+“A fine story! Did she appear to know what had happened? Had she heard
+of the murder?”
+
+“Something, monsieur.”
+
+“Who could have told her? Did you?”
+
+“No, not I. But she knew.”
+
+“Was not that in itself suspicious? The fact has not yet been made
+public.”
+
+“It was in the air, monsieur. There was a general impression that
+something had happened. That was to be seen on every face, in the
+whispered talk, the movement to and fro of the police and the guards.”
+
+“Did she speak of it, or refer to it?”
+
+“Only to ask if the murderer was known; whether the passengers had been
+detained; whether there was any inquiry in progress; and then—”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“This gentleman,” pointing to Block, “came out, accompanied by another.
+They passed pretty close to us, and I noticed that the lady slipped
+quickly on one side.”
+
+“She recognized her confederate, of course, but did not wish to be seen
+just then. Did he, the person with Block here, see her?”
+
+“Hardly, I think; it was all so quick, and they were gone, in a minute,
+to the cab-stand.”
+
+“What did your woman do?”
+
+“She seemed to have changed her mind all at once, and declared she
+would not wait for her friends. Now she was in quite a hurry to go.”
+
+“Of course! and left you like a fool planted there. I suppose she took
+a cab and followed the others, Block here and his companion.”
+
+“I believe she did. I saw her cab close behind theirs.”
+
+“It is too late to lament this now,” said the Chief, after a short
+pause, looking at his colleagues. “At least it confirms our ideas, and
+brings us to certain definite conclusions. We must lay hands on these
+two. Their guilt is all but established. Their own acts condemn them.
+They must be arrested without a moment’s delay.”
+
+“If you can find them!” suggested the Judge, with a very perceptible
+sneer.
+
+“That we shall certainly do. Trust to Block, who is very nearly
+concerned. His future depends on his success. You quite understand
+that, my man?”
+
+Block made a gesture half-deprecating, half-confident.
+
+“I do not despair, gentlemen; and if I might make so bold, sir, I will
+ask you to assist? If you would give orders direct from the Prefecture
+to make the round of the cab-stands, to ask of all the agents in charge
+the information we need? Before night we shall have heard from the
+cabman who drove them what became of this couple, and so get our birds
+themselves, or a point of fresh departure.”
+
+“And you, Block, where shall you go?”
+
+“Where I left him, or rather where he left me,” replied the inspector,
+with an attempt at wit, which fell quite flat, being extinguished by a
+frigid look from the Judge.
+
+“Go,” said M. Floçon, briefly and severely, to his subordinate; “and
+remember that you have now to justify your retention on the force.”
+
+Then, turning to M. Beaumont le Hardi, the Chief went on pleasantly:
+
+“Well, M. le Juge, it promises, I think; it is all fairly satisfactory,
+eh?”
+
+“I am sorry I cannot agree with you,” replied the Judge, harshly. “On
+the contrary, I consider that we—or more exactly you, for neither I nor
+M. Garraud accept any share in it—you have so far failed, and
+miserably.”
+
+“Your pardon, M. le Juge, you are too severe,” protested M. Floçon,
+quite humbly.
+
+“Well! Look at it from all points of view. What have we got? What have
+we gained? Nothing, or, if anything, it is of the smallest, and it is
+already jeopardized, if not absolutely lost.”
+
+“We have at least gained the positive assurance of the guilt of certain
+individuals.”
+
+“Whom you have allowed to slip through your fingers.”
+
+“Ah, not so, M. le Juge! We have one under surveillance. My man
+Galipaud is there at the hotel watching the Countess.”
+
+“Do not talk to me of your men, M. Floçon,” angrily interposed the
+Judge. “One of them has given us a touch of his quality. Why should not
+the other be equally foolish? I quite expect to hear that the Countess
+also has gone, that would be the climax!”
+
+“It shall not happen. I will take the warrant and arrest her now, at
+once, myself,” cried M. Floçon.
+
+“Well, that will be something, yet not much. Yes, she is only one, and
+not to my mind the most criminal. We do not know as yet the exact
+responsibility of each, the exact measure of their guilt; but I do not
+myself believe that the Countess was a prime mover, or, indeed, more
+than an accessory. She was drawn into it, perhaps involved, how or why
+we cannot know, but possibly by fortuitous circumstances that put an
+unavoidable pressure upon her; a consenting party, but under protest.
+That is my view of the lady.”
+
+M. Floçon shook his head. Prepossessions with him were tenacious, and
+he had made up his mind about the Countess’s guilt.
+
+“When you again interrogate her, M. le Juge, by the light of your
+present knowledge, I believe you will think otherwise. She will
+confess,—you will make her, your skill is unrivalled,—and you will then
+admit, M. le Juge, that I was right in my suspicions.”
+
+“Ah, well, produce her! We shall see,” said the Judge, somewhat
+mollified by M. Floçon’s fulsome flattery.
+
+“I will bring her to your chamber of instruction within an hour, M. le
+Juge,” said the detective, very confidently.
+
+But he was doomed to disappointment in this as he was in other
+respects.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Let us go back a little in point of time, and follow the movements of
+Sir Charles Collingham.
+
+It was barely 11 A.M. when he left the Lyons Station with his brother,
+the Reverend Silas, and the military attaché, Colonel Papillon. They
+paused for a moment outside the station while the baggage was being got
+together.
+
+“See, Silas,” said the General, pointing to the clock, “you will have
+plenty of time for the 11.50 train to Calais for London, but you must
+hurry up and drive straight across Paris to the Nord. I suppose he can
+go, Jack?”
+
+“Certainly, as he has promised to return if called upon.”
+
+And Mr. Collingham promptly took advantage of the permission.
+
+“But you, General, what are your plans?” went on the attaché.
+
+“I shall go to the club first, get a room, dress, and all that. Then
+call at the Hôtel Madagascar. There is a lady there,—one of our party,
+in fact,—and I should like to ask after her. She may be glad of my
+services.”
+
+“English? Is there anything we can do for her?”
+
+“Yes, she is an Englishwoman, but the widow of an Italian—the Contessa
+di Castagneto.”
+
+“Oh, but I know her!” said Papillon. “I remember her in Rome two or
+three years ago. A deuced pretty woman, very much admired, but she was
+in deep mourning then, and went out very little. I wished she had gone
+out more. There were lots of men ready to fall at her feet.”
+
+“You were in Rome, then, some time back? Did you ever come across a man
+there, Quadling, the banker?”
+
+“Of course I did. Constantly. He was a good deal about—a rather
+free-living, self-indulgent sort of chap. And now you mention his name,
+I recollect they said he was much smitten by this particular lady, the
+Contessa di Castagneto.”
+
+“And did she encourage him?” “Lord! how can I tell? Who shall say how a
+woman’s fancy falls? It might have suited her too. They said she was
+not in very good circumstances, and he was thought to be a rich man. Of
+course we know better than that now.”
+
+“Why _now?_”
+
+“Haven’t you heard? It was in the _Figaro_ yesterday, and in all the
+Paris papers. Quadling’s bank has gone to smash; he has bolted with all
+the ‘ready’ he could lay hands upon.”
+
+“He didn’t get far, then!” cried Sir Charles. “You look surprised,
+Jack. Didn’t they tell you? This Quadling was the man murdered in the
+sleeping-car. It was no doubt for the money he carried with him.”
+
+“Was it Quadling? My word! what a terrible Nemesis. Well, _nil nisi
+bonum_, but I never thought much of the chap, and your friend the
+Countess has had an escape. But now, sir, I must be moving. My
+engagement is for twelve noon. If you want me, mind you send—207 Rue
+Miromesnil, or to the Embassy; but let us arrange to meet this evening,
+eh? Dinner and a theatre—what do you say?”
+
+Then Colonel Papillon rode off, and the General was driven to the
+Boulevard des Capucines, having much to occupy his thoughts by the way.
+
+It did not greatly please him to have this story of the Countess’s
+relations with Quadling, as first hinted at by the police, endorsed now
+by his friend Papillon. Clearly she had kept up her acquaintance, her
+intimacy to the very last: why otherwise should she have received him,
+alone, been closeted with him for an hour or more on the very eve of
+his flight? It was a clandestine acquaintance too, or seemed so, for
+Sir Charles, although a frequent visitor at her house, had never met
+Quadling there.
+
+What did it all mean? And yet, what, after all, did it matter to him?
+
+A good deal really more than he chose to admit to himself, even now,
+when closely questioning his secret heart. The fact was, the Countess
+had made a very strong impression on him from the first. He had admired
+her greatly during the past winter at Rome, but then it was only a
+passing fancy, as he thought,—the pleasant platonic flirtation of a
+middle-aged man, who never expected to inspire or feel a great love.
+Only now, when he had shared a serious trouble with her, had passed
+through common difficulties and dangers, he was finding what accident
+may do—how it may fan a first liking into a stronger flame. It was
+absurd, of course. He was fifty-one, he had weathered many trifling
+affairs of the heart, and here he was, bowled over at last, and by a
+woman he was not certain was entitled to his respect.
+
+What was he to do?
+
+The answer came at once and unhesitatingly, as it would to any other
+honest, chivalrous gentleman.
+
+“By George, I’ll stick to her through thick and thin! I’ll trust her
+whatever happens or has happened, come what may. Such a woman as that
+is above suspicion. She _must_ be straight. I should be a beast and a
+blackguard double distilled to think anything else. I am sure she can
+put all right with a word, can explain everything when she chooses. I
+will wait till she does.”
+
+Thus fortified and decided, Sir Charles took his way to the Hôtel
+Madagascar about noon. At the desk he inquired for the Countess, and
+begged that his card might be sent up to her. The man looked at it,
+then at the visitor, as he stood there waiting rather impatiently, then
+again at the card. At last he walked out and across the inner courtyard
+of the hotel to the office. Presently the manager came back, bowing
+low, and, holding the card in his hand, began a desultory conversation.
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried the General, angrily cutting short all references to
+the weather and the number of English visitors in Paris. “But be so
+good as to let Madame la Comtesse know that I have called.”
+
+“Ah, to be sure! I came to tell Monsieur le Général that madame will
+hardly be able to see him. She is indisposed, I believe. At any rate,
+she does not receive to-day.”
+
+“As to that, we shall see. I will take no answer except direct from
+her. Take or send up my card without further delay. I insist! Do you
+hear?” said the General, so fiercely that the manager turned tail and
+fled up-stairs.
+
+Perhaps he yielded his ground the more readily that he saw over the
+General’s shoulder the figure of Galipaud the detective looming in the
+archway. It had been arranged that, as it was not advisable to have the
+inspector hanging about the courtyard of the hotel, the clerk or the
+manager should keep watch over the Countess and detain any visitors who
+might call upon her. Galipaud had taken post at a wine-shop over the
+way, and was to be summoned whenever his presence was thought
+necessary.
+
+There he was now, standing just behind the General, and for the present
+unseen by him.
+
+But then a telegraph messenger came in and up to the desk. He held the
+usual blue envelope in his hand, and called out the name on the
+address:
+
+“Castagneto. Contessa Castagneto.”
+
+At sound of which the General turned sharply, to find Galipaud
+advancing and stretching out his hand to take the message.
+
+“Pardon me,” cried Sir Charles, promptly interposing and understanding
+the situation at a glance. “I am just going up to see that lady. Give
+me the telegram.”
+
+Galipaud would have disputed the point, when the General, who had
+already recognized him, said quietly:
+
+“No, no, Inspector, you have no earthly right to it. I guess why you
+are here, but you are not entitled to interfere with private
+correspondence. Stand back;” and seeing the detective hesitate, he
+added peremptorily:
+
+“Enough of this. I order you to get out of the way. And be quick about
+it!”
+
+The manager now returned, and admitted that Madame la Comtesse would
+receive her visitor. A few seconds more, and the General was admitted
+into her presence.
+
+“How truly kind of you to call!” she said at once, coming up to him
+with both hands outstretched and frank gladness in her eyes.
+
+Yes, she was very attractive in her plain, dark travelling dress
+draping her tall, graceful figure; her beautiful, pale face was
+enhanced by the rich tones of her dark brown, wavy hair, while just a
+narrow band of white muslin at her wrists and neck set off the dazzling
+clearness of her skin.
+
+“Of course I came. I thought you might want me, or might like to know
+the latest news,” he answered, as he held her hands in his for a few
+seconds longer than was perhaps absolutely necessary.
+
+“Oh, do tell me! Is there anything fresh?” There was a flash of crimson
+colour in her cheek, which faded almost instantly.
+
+“This much. They have found out who the man was.”
+
+“Really? Positively? Whom do they say now?”
+
+“Perhaps I had better not tell you. It may surprise you, shock you to
+hear. I think you knew him—”
+
+“Nothing can well shock me now. I have had too many shocks already. Who
+do they think it is?”
+
+“A Mr. Quadling, a banker, who is supposed to have absconded from
+Rome.”
+
+She received the news so impassively, with such strange
+self-possession, that for a moment he was disappointed in her. But
+then, quick to excuse, he suggested:
+
+“You may have already heard?”
+
+“Yes; the police people at the railway station told me they thought it
+was Mr. Quadling.”
+
+“But you knew him?”
+
+“Certainly. They were my bankers, much to my sorrow. I shall lose
+heavily by their failure.”
+
+“That also has reached you, then?” interrupted the General, hastily and
+somewhat uneasily.
+
+“To be sure. The man told me of it himself. Indeed, he came to me the
+very day I was leaving Rome, and made me an offer—a most obliging
+offer.”
+
+“To share his fallen fortunes?”
+
+“Sir Charles Collingham! How can you? That creature!” The contempt in
+her tone was immeasurable.
+
+“I had heard—well, some one said that—”
+
+“Speak out, General; I shall not be offended. I know what you mean. It
+is perfectly true that the man once presumed to pester me with his
+attentions. But I would as soon have looked at a courier or a cook. And
+now—”
+
+There was a pause. The General felt on delicate ground. He could ask no
+questions—anything more must come from the Countess herself.
+
+“But let me tell you what his offer was. I don’t know why I listened to
+it. I ought to have at once informed the police. I wish I had.”
+
+“It might have saved him from his fate.”
+
+“Every villain gets his deserts in the long run,” she said, with bitter
+sententiousness. “And this Mr. Quadling is—But wait, you shall know him
+better. He came to me to propose—what do you think?—that he—his bank, I
+mean—should secretly repay me the amount of my deposit, all the money I
+had in it. To join me in his fraud, in fact—”
+
+“The scoundrel! Upon my word, he has been well served. And that was the
+last you saw of him?”
+
+“I saw him on the journey, at Turin, at Modane, at—Oh, Sir Charles, do
+not ask me any more about him!” she cried, with a sudden outburst,
+half-grief, half-dread. “I cannot tell you—I am obliged to—I—I—”
+
+“Then do not say another word,” he said, promptly.
+
+“There are other things. But my lips are sealed—at least for the
+present. You do not—will not think any worse of me?”
+
+She laid her hand gently on his arm, and his closed over it with such
+evident good-will that a blush crimsoned her cheek. It still hung
+there, and deepened when he said, warmly:
+
+“As if anything could make me do that! Don’t you know—you may not, but
+let me assure you, Countess—that nothing could happen to shake me in
+the high opinion I have of you. Come what may, I shall trust you,
+believe in you, think well of you—always.”
+
+“How sweet of you to say that! and now, of all times,” she murmured
+quite softly, and looking up for the first time, shyly, to meet his
+eyes.
+
+Her hand was still on his arm, covered by his, and she nestled so close
+to him that it was easy, natural, indeed, for him to slip his other arm
+around her waist and draw her to him.
+
+“And now—of all times—may I say one word more?” he whispered in her
+ear. “Will you give me the right to shelter and protect you, to stand
+by you, share your troubles, or keep them from you—?”
+
+“No, no, no, indeed, not now!” She looked up appealingly, the tears
+brimming up in her bright eyes. “I cannot, will not accept this
+sacrifice. You are only speaking out of your true-hearted chivalry. You
+must not join yourself to me, you must not involve yourself—”
+
+He stopped her protests by the oldest and most effectual method known
+in such cases. That first sweet kiss sealed the compact so quickly
+entered into between them.
+
+And after that she surrendered at discretion. There was no more
+hesitation or reluctance; she accepted his love as he had offered it,
+freely, with whole heart and soul, crept up under his sheltering wing
+like a storm-beaten dove reëntering the nest, and there, cooing softly,
+“My knight—my own true knight and lord,” yielded herself willingly and
+unquestioningly to his tender caresses.
+
+Such moments snatched from the heart of pressing anxieties are made
+doubly sweet by their sharp contrast with a background of trouble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+They sat there, these two, hand locked in hand, saying little,
+satisfied now to be with each other and their new-found love. The time
+flew by far too fast, till at last Sir Charles, with a half-laugh,
+suggested:
+
+“Do you know, dearest Countess—”
+
+She corrected him in a soft, low voice.
+
+“My name is Sabine—Charles.”
+
+“Sabine, darling. It is very prosaic of me, perhaps, but do you know
+that I am nearly starved? I came on here at once. I have had no
+breakfast.”
+
+“Nor have I,” she answered, smiling. “I was thinking of it when—when
+you appeared like a whirlwind, and since then, events have moved so
+fast.”
+
+“Are you sorry, Sabine? Would you rather go back to—to—before?” She
+made a pretty gesture of closing his traitor lips with her small hand.
+
+“Not for worlds. But you soldiers—you are terrible men! Who can resist
+you?”
+
+“Bah! It is you who are irresistible. But there, why not put on your
+jacket and let us go out to lunch somewhere—Durand’s, Voisin’s, the
+Café de le Paix? Which do you prefer?”
+
+“I suppose they will not try to stop us?”
+
+“Who should try?” he asked.
+
+“The people of the hotel—the police—I cannot exactly say whom; but I
+dread something of the sort. I don’t quite understand that manager. He
+has been up to see me several times, and he spoke rather oddly, rather
+rudely.”
+
+“Then he shall answer for it,” snorted Sir Charles, hotly. “It is the
+fault of that brute of a detective, I suppose. Still they would hardly
+dare—”
+
+“A detective? What? Here? Are you sure?”
+
+“Perfectly sure. It is one of those from the Lyons Station. I knew him
+again directly, and he was inclined to be interfering. Why, I caught
+him trying—but that reminds me—I rescued this telegram from his
+clutches.”
+
+He took the little blue envelope from his breast pocket and handed it
+to her, kissing the tips of her fingers as she took it from him.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+A sudden ejaculation of dismay escaped her, when, after rather
+carelessly tearing the message open, she had glanced at it.
+
+“What is the matter?” he asked in eager solicitude. “May I not know?”
+
+She made no offer to give him the telegram, and said in a faltering
+voice, and with much hesitation of manner, “I do not know. I hardly
+think—of course I do not like to withhold anything, not now. And yet,
+this is a business which concerns me only, I am afraid. I ought not to
+drag you into it.”
+
+“What concerns you is very much my business, too. I do not wish to
+force your confidence, still—”
+
+She gave him the telegram quite obediently, with a little sigh of
+relief, glad to realize now, for the first time after many years, that
+there was some one to give her orders and take the burden of trouble
+off her shoulders.
+
+He read it, but did not understand it in the least. It ran: “I must see
+you immediately, and beg you will come. You will find Hortense here.
+She is giving trouble. You only can deal with her. Do not delay. Come
+at once, or we must go to you.—Ripaldi, Hôtel Ivoire, Rue Bellechasse.”
+
+“What does this mean? Who sends it? Who is Ripaldi?” asked Sir Charles,
+rather brusquely.
+
+“He—he—oh, Charles, I shall have to go. Anything would be better than
+his coming here.”
+
+“Ripaldi? Haven’t I heard the name? He was one of those in the
+sleeping-car, I think? The Chief of the Detective Police called it out
+once or twice. Am I not right? Please tell me—am I not right?”
+
+“Yes, yes; this man was there with the rest of us. A dark man, who sat
+near the door—”
+
+“Ah, to be sure. But what—what in Heaven’s name has he to do with you?
+How does he dare to send you such an impudent message as this? Surely,
+Sabine, you will tell me? You will admit that I have a right to ask?”
+
+“Yes, of course. I will tell you, Charles, everything; but not here—not
+now. It must be on the way. I have been very wrong, very foolish—but
+oh, come, come, do let us be going. I am so afraid he might—”
+
+“Then I may go with you? You do not object to that?”
+
+“I much prefer it—much. Do let us make haste!”
+
+She snatched up her sealskin jacket, and held it to him prettily, that
+he might help her into it, which he did neatly and cleverly, smoothing
+her great puffed-out sleeves under each shoulder of the coat, still
+talking eagerly and taking no toll for his trouble as she stood
+patiently, passively before him.
+
+“And this Hortense? It is your maid, is it not—the woman who had taken
+herself off? How comes it that she is with that Italian fellow? Upon my
+soul, I don’t understand—not a little bit.”
+
+“I cannot explain that, either. It is most strange, most
+incomprehensible, but we shall soon know. Please, Charles, please do
+not get impatient.”
+
+They passed together down into the hotel courtyard and across it, under
+the archway which led past the clerk’s desk into the street.
+
+On seeing them, he came out hastily and placed himself in front, quite
+plainly barring their egress.
+
+“Oh, madame, one moment,” he said in a tone that was by no means
+conciliatory. “The manager wants to speak to you; he told me to tell
+you, and stop you if you went out.”
+
+“The manager can speak to madame when she returns,” interposed the
+General angrily, answering for the Countess.
+
+“I have had my orders, and I cannot allow her—”
+
+“Stand aside, you scoundrel!” cried the General, blazing up; “or upon
+my soul I shall give you such a lesson you will be sorry you were ever
+born.”
+
+At this moment the manager himself appeared in reinforcement, and the
+clerk turned to him for protection and support.
+
+“I was merely giving madame your message, M. Auguste, when this
+gentleman interposed, threatened me, maltreated me—”
+
+“Oh, surely not; it is some mistake;” the manager spoke most suavely.
+“But certainly I did wish to speak to madame. I wished to ask her
+whether she was satisfied with her apartment. I find that the rooms she
+has generally occupied have fallen vacant, in the nick of time. Perhaps
+madame would like to look at them, and move?”
+
+“Thank you, M. Auguste, you are very good; but at another time. I am
+very much pressed just now. When I return in an hour or two, not now.”
+
+The manager was profuse in his apologies, and made no further
+difficulty.
+
+“Oh, as you please, madame. Perfectly. By and by, later, when you
+choose.”
+
+The fact was, the desired result had been obtained. For now, on the far
+side from where he had been watching, Galipaud appeared, no doubt in
+reply to some secret signal, and the detective with a short nod in
+acknowledgment had evidently removed his embargo.
+
+A cab was called, and Sir Charles, having put the Countess in, was
+turning to give the driver his instructions, when a fresh complication
+arose.
+
+Some one coming round the corner had caught a glimpse of the lady
+disappearing into the fiacre, and cried out from afar.
+
+“Stay! Stop! I want to speak to that lady; detain her.” It was the
+sharp voice of little M. Floçon, whom most of those present, certainly
+the Countess and Sir Charles, immediately recognized.
+
+“No, no, no—don’t let them keep me—I cannot wait now,” she whispered in
+earnest, urgent appeal. It was not lost on her loyal and devoted
+friend.
+
+“Go on!” he shouted to the cabman, with all the peremptory insistence
+of one trained to give words of command. “Forward! As fast as you can
+drive. I’ll pay you double fare. Tell him where to go, Sabine. I’ll
+follow—in less than no time.”
+
+The fiacre rattled off at top speed, and the General turned to confront
+M. Floçon.
+
+The little detective was white to the lips with rage and
+disappointment; but he also was a man of promptitude, and before
+falling foul of this pestilent Englishman, who had again marred his
+plans, he shouted to Galipaud—
+
+“Quick! After them! Follow her wherever she goes. Take this,”—he thrust
+a paper into his subordinate’s hand. “It is a warrant for her arrest.
+Seize her wherever you find her, and bring her to the Quai l’Horloge,”
+the euphemistic title of the headquarters of the French police.
+
+The pursuit was started at once, and then the Chief turned upon Sir
+Charles. “Now it is between us,” he said, fiercely. “You must account
+to me for what you have done.”
+
+“Must I?” answered the General, mockingly and with a little laugh. “It
+is perfectly easy. Madame was in a hurry, so I helped her to get away.
+That was all.”
+
+“You have traversed and opposed the action of the law. You have impeded
+me, the Chief of the Detective Service, in the execution of my duty. It
+is not the first time, but now you must answer for it.”
+
+“Dear me!” said the General in the same flippant, irritating tone.
+
+“You will have to accompany me now to the Prefecture.”
+
+“And if it does not suit me to go?”
+
+“I will have you carried there, bound, tied hand and foot, by the
+police, like any common rapscallion taken in the act who resists the
+authority of an officer.”
+
+“Oho, you talk very big, sir. Perhaps you will be so obliging as to
+tell me what I have done.”
+
+“You have connived at the escape of a criminal from justice—”
+
+“That lady? Psha!”
+
+“She is charged with a heinous crime—that in which you yourself were
+implicated—the murder of that man on the train.”
+
+“Bah! You must be a stupid goose, to hint at such a thing! A lady of
+birth, breeding, the highest respectability—impossible!”
+
+“All that has not prevented her from allying herself with base, common
+wretches. I do not say she struck the blow, but I believe she inspired,
+concerted, approved it, leaving her confederates to do the actual
+deed.”
+
+“Confederates?”
+
+“The man Ripaldi, your Italian fellow traveller; her maid, Hortense
+Petitpré, who was missing this morning.”
+
+The General was fairly staggered at this unexpected blow. Half an hour
+ago he would have scouted the very thought, indignantly repelled the
+spoken words that even hinted a suspicion of Sabine Castagneto. But
+that telegram, signed Ripaldi, the introduction of the maid’s name, and
+the suggestion that she was troublesome, the threat that if the
+Countess did not go, they would come to her, and her marked uneasiness
+thereat—all this implied plainly the existence of collusion, of some
+secret relations, some secret understanding between her and the others.
+
+He could not entirely conceal the trouble that now overcame him; it
+certainly did not escape so shrewd an observer as M. Floçon, who
+promptly tried to turn it to good account.
+
+“Come, M. le Général,” he said, with much assumed _bonhomie_. “I can
+see how it is with you, and you have my sincere sympathy. We are all of
+us liable to be carried away, and there is much excuse for you in this.
+But now—believe me, I am justified in saying it—now I tell you that our
+case is strong against her, that it is not mere speculation, but
+supported by facts. Now surely you will come over to our side?”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“Tell us frankly all you know—where that lady has gone, help us to lay
+our hands on her.”
+
+“Your own people will do that. I heard you order that man to follow
+her.”
+
+“Probably; still I would rather have the information from you. It would
+satisfy me of your good-will. I need not then proceed to extremities—”
+
+“I certainly shall not give it you,” said the General, hotly. “Anything
+I know about or have heard from the Contessa Castagneto is sacred;
+besides, I still believe in her—thoroughly. Nothing you have said can
+shake me.”
+
+“Then I must ask you to accompany me to the Prefecture. You will come,
+I trust, on my _invitation_.” The Chief spoke quietly, but with
+considerable dignity, and he laid a slight stress upon the last word.
+
+“Meaning that if I do not, you will have resort to something stronger?”
+
+“That will be quite unnecessary, I am sure,—at least I hope so. Still—”
+
+“I will go where you like, only I will tell you nothing more, not a
+single word; and before I start, I must let my friends at the Embassy
+know where to find me.”
+
+“Oh, with all my heart,” said the little detective, shrugging his
+shoulders. “We will call there on our way, and you can tell the porter.
+They will know where to find us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Sir Charles Collingham and his escort, M. Floçon, entered a cab
+together and were driven first to the Faubourg St. Honoré. The General
+tried hard to maintain his nonchalance, but he was yet a little
+crestfallen at the turn things had taken, and M. Floçon, who, on the
+other hand, was elated and triumphant, saw it. But no words passed
+between them until they arrived at the portals of the British Embassy,
+and the General handed out his card to the magnificent porter who
+received them.
+
+“Kindly let Colonel Papillon have that without delay.” The General had
+written a few words: “I have got into fresh trouble. Come on to me at
+the Police Prefecture if you can spare the time.”
+
+“The Colonel is now in the Chancery: will not monsieur wait?” asked the
+porter, with superb civility.
+
+But the detective would not suffer this, and interposed, answering
+abruptly for Sir Charles:
+
+“No. It is impossible. We are going to the Quai l’Horloge. It is an
+urgent matter.”
+
+The porter knew what the Quai l’Horloge meant, and he guessed
+intuitively who was speaking. Every Frenchman can recognize a police
+officer, and has, as a rule, no great opinion of him.
+
+“Very well!” now said the porter, curtly, as he banged the wicket-gate
+on the retreating cab, and he did not hurry himself in giving the card
+to Colonel Papillon.
+
+“Does this mean that I am a prisoner?” asked Sir Charles, his gorge
+rising, as it did easily.
+
+“It means, monsieur, that you are in the hands of justice until your
+recent conduct has been fully explained,” said the detective, with the
+air of a despot.
+
+“But I protest—”
+
+“I wish to hear no further observations, monsieur. You may reserve them
+till you can give them to the right person.”
+
+The General’s temper was sorely ruffled. He did not like it at all; yet
+what could he do? Prudence gained the day, and after a struggle he
+decided to submit, lest worse might befall him.
+
+There was, in truth, worse to be encountered. It was very irksome to be
+in the power of this now domineering little man on his own ground, and
+eager to show his power. It was with a very bad grace that Sir Charles
+obeyed the curt orders he received, to leave the cab, to enter at a
+side door of the Prefecture, to follow this pompous conductor along the
+long vaulted passages of this rambling building, up many flights of
+stone stairs, to halt obediently at his command when at length they
+reached a closed door on an upper story.
+
+“It is here!” said M. Floçon, as he turned the handle unceremoniously
+without knocking. “Enter.”
+
+A man was seated at a small desk in the centre of a big bare room, who
+rose at once at the sight of M. Floçon, and bowed deferentially without
+speaking.
+
+“Baume,” said the Chief, shortly, “I wish to leave this gentleman with
+you. Make him at home,”—the words were spoken in manifest irony,—“and
+when I call you, bring him at once to my cabinet. You, monsieur, you
+will oblige me by staying here.”
+
+Sir Charles nodded carelessly, took the first chair that offered, and
+sat down by the fire.
+
+He was to all intents and purposes in custody, and he examined his
+gaoler at first wrathfully, then curiously, struck with his rather
+strange figure and appearance. Baume, as the Chief had called him, was
+a short, thick-set man with a great shock head sunk in low between a
+pair of enormous shoulders, betokening great physical strength; he
+stood on very thin but greatly twisted bow legs, and the quaintness of
+his figure was emphasized by the short black blouse or smock-frock he
+wore over his other clothes like a French artisan.
+
+He was a man of few words, and those not the most polite in tone, for
+when the General began with a banal remark about the weather, M. Baume
+replied, shortly:
+
+“I wish to have no talk;” and when Sir Charles pulled out his
+cigarette-case, as he did almost automatically from time to time when
+in any situation of annoyance or perplexity, Baume raised his hand
+warningly and grunted:
+
+“Not allowed.”
+
+“Then I’ll be hanged if I don’t smoke in spite of every man jack of
+you!” cried the General, hotly, rising from his seat and speaking
+unconsciously in English.
+
+“What’s that?” asked Baume, gruffly. He was one of the detective staff,
+and was only doing his duty according to his lights, and he said so
+with such an injured air that the General was pacified, laughed, and
+relapsed into silence without lighting his cigarette.
+
+The time ran on, from minutes into nearly an hour, a very trying wait
+for Sir Charles. There is always something irritating in doing
+antechamber work, in kicking one’s heels in the waiting-room of any
+functionary or official, high or low, and the General found it hard to
+possess himself in patience, when he thought he was being thus
+ignominiously treated by a man like M. Floçon. All the time, too, he
+was worrying himself about the Countess, wondering first how she had
+fared; next, where she was just then; last of all, and longest, whether
+it was possible for her to be mixed up in anything compromising or
+criminal.
+
+Suddenly an electric bell struck in the room. There was a table
+telephone at Baume’s elbow; he took up the handle, put the tube to his
+mouth and ear, got his message answered, and then, rising, said
+abruptly to Sir Charles:
+
+“Come.”
+
+When the General was at last ushered into the presence of the Chief of
+the Detective Police, he found to his satisfaction that Colonel
+Papillon was also there, and at M. Floçon’s side sat the instructing
+judge, M. Beaumont le Hardi, who, after waiting politely until the two
+Englishmen had exchanged greetings, was the first to speak, and in
+apology.
+
+“You will, I trust, pardon us, M. le Général, for having detained you
+here and so long. But there were, as we thought, good and sufficient
+reasons. If those have now lost some of their cogency, we still stand
+by our action as having been justifiable in the execution of our duty.
+We are now willing to let you go free, because—because—”
+
+“We have caught the person, the lady you helped to escape,” blurted out
+the detective, unable to resist making the point.
+
+“The Countess? Is she here, in custody? Never!”
+
+“Undoubtedly she is in custody, and in very close custody too,” went on
+M. Floçon, gleefully. “_Au secret_, if you know what that means—in a
+cell separate and apart, where no one is permitted to see or speak to
+her.”
+
+“Surely not that? Jack—Papillon—this must not be. I beg of you,
+implore, insist, that you will get his lordship to interpose.”
+
+“But, sir, how can I? You must not ask impossibilities. The Contessa
+Castagneto is really an Italian subject now.”
+
+“She is English by birth, and whether or no, she is a woman, a
+high-bred lady; and it is abominable, unheard-of, to subject her to
+such monstrous treatment,” said the General.
+
+“But these gentlemen declare that they are fully warranted, that she
+has put herself in the wrong—greatly, culpably in the wrong.”
+
+“I don’t believe it!” cried the General, indignantly. “Not from these
+chaps, a pack of idiots, always on the wrong tack! I don’t believe a
+word, not if they swear.”
+
+“But they have documentary evidence—papers of the most damaging kind
+against her.”
+
+“Where? How?”
+
+“He—M. le Juge—has been showing me a note-book;” and the General’s
+eyes, following Jack Papillon’s, were directed to a small _carnet_, or
+memorandum-book, which the Judge, interpreting the glance, was tapping
+significantly with his finger.
+
+Then the Judge said blandly, “It is easy to perceive that you protest,
+M. le Général, against that lady’s arrest. Is it so? Well, we are not
+called upon to justify it to you, not in the very least. But we are
+dealing with a brave man, a gentleman, an officer of high rank and
+consideration, and you shall know things that we are not bound to tell,
+to you or to any one.”
+
+“First,” he continued, holding up the note-book, “do you know what this
+is? Have you ever seen it before?”
+
+“I am dimly conscious of the fact, and yet I cannot say when or where.”
+
+“It is the property of one of your fellow travellers—an Italian called
+Ripaldi.”
+
+“Ripaldi?” said the General, remembering with some uneasiness that he
+had seen the name at the bottom of the Countess’s telegram. “Ah! now I
+understand.”
+
+“You had heard of it, then? In what connection?” asked the Judge, a
+little carelessly, but it was a suddenly planned pitfall.
+
+“I now understand,” replied the General, perfectly on his guard, “why
+the note-book was familiar to me. I had seen it in that man’s hands in
+the waiting-room. He was writing in it.”
+
+“Indeed? A favourite occupation evidently. He was fond of confiding in
+that note-book, and committed to it much that he never expected would
+see the light—his movements, intentions, ideas, even his inmost
+thoughts. The book—which he no doubt lost inadvertently is very
+incriminating to himself and his friends.”
+
+“What do you imply?” hastily inquired Sir Charles.
+
+“Simply that it is on that which is written here that we base one part,
+perhaps the strongest, of our case against the Countess. It is
+strangely but convincingly corroborative of our suspicions against
+her.”
+
+“May I look at it for myself?” went on the General in a tone of
+contemptuous disbelief.
+
+“It is in Italian. Perhaps you can read that language? If not, I have
+translated the most important passages,” said the Judge, offering some
+other papers.
+
+“Thank you; if you will permit me, I should prefer to look at the
+original;” and the General, without more ado, stretched out his hand
+and took the note-book.
+
+What he read there, as he quickly scanned its pages, shall be told in
+the next chapter. It will be seen that there were things written that
+looked very damaging to his dear friend, Sabine Castagneto.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Ripaldi’s diary—its ownership plainly shown by the record of his name
+in full, Natale Ripaldi, inside the cover—was a commonplace note-book
+bound in shabby drab cloth, its edges and corners strengthened with
+some sort of white metal. The pages were of coarse paper, lined blue
+and red, and they were dog-eared and smirched as though they had been
+constantly turned over and used.
+
+The earlier entries were little more than a record of work to do or
+done.
+
+“Jan. 11. To call at Café di Roma, 12.30. Beppo will meet me.
+
+“Jan. 13. Traced M. L. Last employed as a model at S.’s studio, Palazzo
+B.
+
+“Jan. 15. There is trouble brewing at the Circulo Bonafede; Louvaih,
+Malatesta, and the Englishman Sprot, have joined it. All are noted
+Anarchists.
+
+“Jan. 20. Mem., pay Trattore. The Bestia will not wait. X. is also
+pressing, and Mariuccia. Situation tightens.
+
+“Jan. 23. Ordered to watch Q. Could I work him? No. Strong doubts of
+his solvency.
+
+“Feb. 10, 11, 12. After Q. No grounds yet.
+
+“Feb. 27. Q. keeps up good appearance. Any mistake? Shall I try him?
+Sorely pressed. X. threatens me with Prefettura.
+
+“March 1. Q. in difficulties. Out late every night. Is playing high;
+poor luck.
+
+“March 3. Q. means mischief. Preparing for a start?
+
+“March 10. Saw Q. about, here, there, everywhere.”
+
+Then followed a brief account of Quadling’s movements on the day before
+his departure from Rome, very much as they have been described in a
+previous chapter. These were made mostly in the form of reflections,
+conjectures, hopes, and fears; hurry-scurry of pursuit had no doubt
+broken the immediate record of events, and these had been entered next
+day in the train.
+
+“March 17 (the day previous). He has not shown up. I thought to see him
+at the buffet at Genoa. The conductor took him his coffee to the car. I
+hoped to have begun an acquaintance.
+
+“12.30. Breakfasted at Turin. Q. did not come to table. Found him
+hanging about outside restaurant. Spoke; got short reply. Wishes to
+avoid observation, I suppose.
+
+“But he speaks to others. He has claimed acquaintance with madame’s
+lady’s maid, and he wants to speak to the mistress. ‘Tell her I must
+speak to her,’ I heard him say, as I passed close to them. Then they
+separated hurriedly.
+
+“At Modane he came to the Douane, and afterwards into the restaurant.
+He bowed across the table to the lady. She hardly recognized him, which
+is odd. Of course she must know him; then why—? There is something
+between them, and the maid is in it.
+
+“What shall _I_ do? I could spoil any game of theirs if I stepped in.
+What are they after? His money, no doubt.
+
+“So am I; I have the best right to it, for I can do most for him. He is
+absolutely in my power, and he’ll see that—he’s no fool—directly he
+knows who I am, and why I’m here. It will be worth his while to buy me
+off, if I’m ready to sell myself, and my duty, and the Prefettura—and
+why shouldn’t I? What better can I do? Shall I ever have such a chance
+again? Twenty, thirty, forty thousand lire, more, even, at one stroke;
+why, it’s a fortune! I could go to the Republic, to America, North or
+South, send for Mariuccia—no, _cospetto!_ I will continue free! I will
+spend the money on myself, as I alone will have earned it, and at such
+risk.
+
+“I have worked it out thus:
+
+“I will go to him at the very last, just before we are reaching Paris.
+Tell him, threaten him with arrest, then give him his chance of escape.
+No fear that he won’t accept it; he _must_, whatever he may have
+settled with the others. _Altro!_ I snap my fingers at them. He has
+most to fear from me.”
+
+The next entries were made after some interval, a long interval,—no
+doubt, after the terrible deed had been done,—and the words were traced
+with trembling fingers, so that the writing was most irregular and
+scarcely legible.
+
+“Ugh! I am still trembling with horror and fear. I cannot get it out of
+my mind; I never shall. Why, what tempted me? How could I bring myself
+to do it?
+
+“But for these two women—they are fiends, furies—it would never have
+been necessary. Now one of them has escaped, and the other—she is here,
+so cold-blooded, so self-possessed and quiet—who would have thought it
+of her? That she, a lady of rank and high breeding, gentle, delicate,
+tender-hearted. Tender? the fiend! Oh, shall I ever forget her?
+
+“And now she has me in her power! But have I not her also? We are in
+the same boat—we must sink or swim, together. We are equally bound, I
+to her, she to me. What are we to do? How shall we meet inquiry?
+_Santissima Donna!_ why did I not risk it, and climb out like the maid?
+It was terrible for the moment, but the worst would have been over, and
+now—”
+
+There was yet more, scribbled in the same faltering, agitated
+handwriting, and from the context the entries had been made in the
+waiting-room of the railroad station.
+
+“I must attract her attention. She will not look my way. I want her to
+understand that I have something special to say to her, and that, as we
+are forbidden to speak, I am writing it herein—that she must contrive
+to take the book from me and read unobserved.
+
+“_Cospetto!_ she is stupid! Has fear dazed her entirely? No matter, I
+will set it all down.”
+
+Now followed what the police deemed such damaging evidence.
+
+“Countess. Remember. Silence—absolute silence. Not a word as to who I
+am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. That cannot be
+undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to it that you know
+nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew _him_, or me. Swear you
+slept soundly the night through, make some excuse, say you were
+drugged, anything, only be on your guard, and say nothing about me. I
+warn you. Leave me alone. Or—but your interests are my interests; we
+must stand or fall together. Afterwards I will meet you—I _must_ meet
+you somewhere. If we miss at the station front, write to me Poste
+Restante, Grand Hôtel, and give me an address. This is imperative. Once
+more, silence and discretion.”
+
+This ended the writing in the note-book, and the whole perusal occupied
+Sir Charles from fifteen to twenty minutes, during which the French
+officials watched his face closely, and his friend Colonel Papillon
+anxiously.
+
+But the General’s mask was impenetrable, and at the end of his reading
+he turned back to read and re-read many pages, holding the book to the
+light, and seeming to examine the contents very curiously.
+
+“Well?” said the Judge at last, when he met the General’s eye.
+
+“Do you lay great store by this evidence?” asked the General in a calm,
+dispassionate voice.
+
+“Is it not natural that we should? Is it not strongly, conclusively
+incriminating?”
+
+“It would be so, of course, if it were to be depended upon. But as to
+that I have my doubts, and grave doubts.”
+
+“Bah!” interposed the detective; “that is mere conjecture, mere
+assertion. Why should not the book be believed? It is perfectly
+genuine—”
+
+“Wait, sir,” said the General, raising his hand. “Have you not
+noticed—surely it cannot have escaped so astute a police
+functionary—that the entries are not all in the same handwriting?”
+
+“What! Oh, that is too absurd!” cried both the officials in a breath.
+
+They saw at once that if this discovery were admitted to be an absolute
+fact, the whole drift of their conclusions must be changed.
+
+“Examine the book for yourselves. To my mind it is perfectly clear and
+beyond all question,” insisted Sir Charles. “I am quite positive that
+the last pages were written by a different hand from the first.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+For several minutes both the Judge and the detective pored over the
+note-book, examining page after page, shaking their heads, and
+declining to accept the evidence of their eyes.
+
+“I cannot see it,” said the Judge at last; adding reluctantly, “No
+doubt there is a difference, but it is to be explained.”
+
+“Quite so,” put in M. Floçon. “When he wrote the early part, he was
+calm and collected; the last entries, so straggling, so ragged, and so
+badly written, were made when he was fresh from the crime, excited,
+upset, little master of himself. Naturally he would use a different
+hand.”
+
+“Or he would wish to disguise it. It was likely he would so wish,”
+further remarked the Judge.
+
+“You admit, then, that there is a difference?” argued the General,
+shrewdly. “But there is more than a disguise. The best disguise leaves
+certain unchangeable features. Some letters, capital G’s, H’s, and
+others, will betray themselves through the best disguise. I know what I
+am saying. I have studied the subject of handwriting; it interests me.
+These are the work of two different hands. Call in an expert; you will
+find I am right.”
+
+“Well, well,” said the Judge, after a pause, “let us grant your
+position for the moment. What do you deduce? What do you infer
+therefrom?”
+
+“Surely you can see what follows—what this leads us to?” said Sir
+Charles, rather disdainfully.
+
+“I have formed an opinion—yes, but I should like to see if it coincides
+with yours. You think—”
+
+“I _know_,” corrected the General. “I know that, as two persons wrote
+in that book, either it is not Ripaldi’s book, or the last of them was
+not Ripaldi. I saw the last writer at his work, saw him with my own
+eyes. Yet he did not write with Ripaldi’s hand—this is incontestable, I
+am sure of it, I will swear it—_ergo_, he is not Ripaldi.”
+
+“But you should have known this at the time,” interjected M. Floçon,
+fiercely. “Why did you not discover the change of identity? You should
+have seen that this was not Ripaldi.”
+
+“Pardon me. I did not know the man. I had not noticed him particularly
+on the journey. There was no reason why I should. I had no
+communication, no dealings, with any of my fellow passengers except my
+brother and the Countess.”
+
+“But some of the others would surely have remarked the change?” went on
+the Judge, greatly puzzled. “That alone seems enough to condemn your
+theory, M. le General.”
+
+“I take my stand on fact, not theory,” stoutly maintained Sir Charles,
+“and I am satisfied I am right.”
+
+“But if that was not Ripaldi, who was it? Who would wish to masquerade
+in his dress and character, to make entries of that sort, as if under
+his hand?”
+
+“Some one determined to divert suspicion from himself to others—”
+
+“But stay—does he not plainly confess his own guilt?”
+
+“What matter if he is not Ripaldi? Directly the inquiry was over, he
+could steal away and resume his own personality—that of a man supposed
+to be dead, and therefore safe from all interference and future
+pursuit.”
+
+“You mean—Upon my word, I compliment you, M. le Général. It is really
+ingenious! remarkable, indeed! superb!” cried the Judge, and only
+professional jealousy prevented M. Floçon from conceding the same
+praise.
+
+“But how—what—I do not understand,” asked Colonel Papillon in
+amazement. His wits did not travel quite so fast as those of his
+companions.
+
+“Simply this, my dear Jack,” explained the General: “Ripaldi must have
+tried to blackmail Quadling, as he proposed, and Quadling turned the
+tables on him. They fought, no doubt, and Quadling killed him, possibly
+in self-defence. He would have said so, but in his peculiar position as
+an absconding defaulter he did not dare. That is how I read it, and I
+believe that now these gentlemen are disposed to agree with me.”
+
+“In theory, certainly,” said the Judge, heartily. “But oh! for some
+more positive proof of this change of character! If we could only
+identify the corpse, prove clearly that it is not Quadling. And still
+more, if we had not let this so-called Ripaldi slip through our
+fingers! You will never find him, M. Floçon, never.”
+
+The detective hung his head in guilty admission of this reproach.
+
+“We may help you in both these difficulties, gentlemen,” said Sir
+Charles, pleasantly. “My friend here, Colonel Papillon, can speak as to
+the man Quadling. He knew him well in Rome, a year or two ago.”
+
+“Please wait one moment only;” the detective touched a bell, and
+briefly ordered two fiacres to the door at once.
+
+“That is right, M. Floçon,” said the Judge. “We will all go to the
+Morgue. The body is there by now. You will not refuse your assistance,
+monsieur?”
+
+“One moment. As to the other matter, M. le General?” went on M. Floçon.
+“Can you help us to find this miscreant, whoever he may be?”
+
+“Yes. The man who calls himself Ripaldi is to be found—or, at least,
+you would have found him an hour or so ago—at the Hotel Ivoire, Rue
+Bellechasse. But time has been lost, I fear.”
+
+“Nevertheless, we will send there.”
+
+“The woman Hortense was also with him when last I heard of them.”
+
+“How do you know?” began the detective, suspiciously.
+
+“Psha!” interrupted the Judge; “that will keep. This is the time for
+action, and we owe too much to the General to distrust him now.”
+
+“Thank you; I am pleased to hear you say that,” went on Sir Charles.
+“But if I have been of some service to you, perhaps you owe me a little
+in return. That poor lady! Think what she is suffering. Surely, to
+oblige me, you will now set her free?”
+
+“Indeed, monsieur, I fear—I do not see how, consistently with my
+duty”—protested the Judge.
+
+“At least allow her to return to her hotel. She can remain there at
+your disposal. I will promise you that.”
+
+“How can you answer for her?”
+
+“She will do what I ask, I think, if I may send her just two or three
+lines.”
+
+The Judge yielded, smiling at the General’s urgency, and shrewdly
+guessing what it implied.
+
+Then the three departures from the Prefecture took place within a short
+time of each other.
+
+A posse of police went to arrest Ripaldi; the Countess returned to the
+Hotel Madagascar; and the Judge’s party started for the Morgue,—only a
+short journey,—where they were presently received with every mark of
+respect and consideration.
+
+The keeper, or officer in charge, was summoned, and came out bareheaded
+to the fiacre, bowing low before his distinguished visitors.
+
+“Good morning, La Pêche,” said M. Floçon in a sharp voice. “We have
+come for an identification. The body from the Lyons Station—he of the
+murder in the sleeping-car—is it yet arrived?”
+
+“But surely, at your service, Chief,” replied the old man,
+obsequiously. “If the gentlemen will give themselves the trouble to
+enter the office, I will lead them behind, direct into the mortuary
+chamber. There are many people in yonder.”
+
+It was the usual crowd of sightseers passing slowly before the plate
+glass of this, the most terrible shop-front in the world, where the
+goods exposed, the merchandise, are hideous corpses laid out in rows
+upon the marble slabs, the battered, tattered remnants of outraged
+humanity, insulted by the most terrible indignities in death.
+
+Who make up this curious throng, and what strange morbid motives drag
+them there? Those fat, comfortable-looking women, with their baskets on
+their arms; the decent workmen in dusty blouses, idling between the
+hours of work; the riffraff of the streets, male or female, in various
+stages of wretchedness and degradation? A few, no doubt, are impelled
+by motives we cannot challenge—they are torn and tortured by suspense,
+trembling lest they may recognize missing dear ones among the exposed;
+others stare carelessly at the day’s “take,” wondering, perhaps, if
+they may come to the same fate; one or two are idle sightseers, not
+always French, for the Morgue is a favourite haunt with the
+irrepressible tourist doing Paris. Strangest of all, the murderer
+himself, the doer of the fell deed, comes here, to the very spot where
+his victim lies stark and reproachful, and stares at it spellbound,
+fascinated, filled more with remorse, perchance, than fear at the risk
+he runs. So common is this trait, that in mysterious murder cases the
+police of Paris keep a disguised officer among the crowd at the Morgue,
+and have thereby made many memorable arrests.
+
+“This way, gentlemen, this way;” and the keeper of the Morgue led the
+party through one or two rooms into the inner and back recesses of the
+buildings. It was behind the scenes of the Morgue, and they were made
+free of its most gruesome secrets as they passed along.
+
+The temperature had suddenly fallen far below freezing-point, and the
+icy cold chilled to the very marrow. Still worse was an all-pervading,
+acrid odour of artificially suspended animal decay. The cold-air
+process, that latest of scientific contrivances to arrest the waste of
+tissue, has now been applied at the Morgue to preserve and keep the
+bodies fresh, and allow them to be for a longer time exposed than when
+running water was the only aid. There are, moreover, many specially
+contrived refrigerating chests, in which those still unrecognized
+corpses are laid by for months, to be dragged out, if needs be, like
+carcasses of meat.
+
+“What a loathsome place!” cried Sir Charles. “Hurry up, Jack! let us
+get out of this, in Heaven’s name!”
+
+“Where’s my man?” quickly asked Colonel Papillon in response to this
+appeal.
+
+“There, the third from the left,” whispered M. Floçon. “We hoped you
+would recognize the corpse at once.”
+
+“That? Impossible! You do not expect it, surely? Why, the face is too
+much mangled for any one to say who it is.”
+
+“Are there no indications, no marks or signs, to say whether it is
+Quadling or not?” asked the Judge in a greatly disappointed tone.
+
+“Absolutely nothing. And yet I am quite satisfied it is not him. For
+the simple reason that—”
+
+“Yes, yes, go on.”
+
+“That Quadling in person is standing out there among the crowd.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+M. Floçon was the first to realize the full meaning of Colonel
+Papillon’s surprising statement.
+
+“Run, run, La Pêche! Have the outer doors closed; let no one leave the
+place.”
+
+“Draw back, gentlemen!” he went on, and he hustled his companions with
+frantic haste out at the back of the mortuary chamber. “Pray Heaven he
+has not seen us! He would know us, even if we do not him.”
+
+Then with no less haste he seized Colonel Papillon by the arm and
+hurried him by the back passages through the office into the outer,
+public chamber, where the astonished crowd stood, silent and perturbed,
+awaiting explanation of their detention.
+
+“Quick, monsieur!” whispered the Chief; “point him out to me.”
+
+The request was not unnecessary, for when Colonel Papillon went
+forward, and, putting his hand on a man’s shoulder, saying, “Mr.
+Quadling, I think,” the police officer was scarcely able to restrain
+his surprise.
+
+The person thus challenged was very unlike any one he had seen before
+that day, Ripaldi most of all. The moustache was gone, the clothes were
+entirely changed; a pair of dark green spectacles helped the disguise.
+It was strange indeed that Papillon had known him; but at the moment of
+recognition Quadling had removed his glasses, no doubt that he might
+the better examine the object of his visit to the Morgue, that gruesome
+record of his own fell handiwork.
+
+Naturally he drew back with well-feigned indignation, muttering
+half-unintelligible words in French, denying stoutly both in voice and
+gesture all acquaintance with the person who thus abruptly addressed
+him.
+
+“This is not to be borne,” he cried. “Who are you that dares—”
+
+“Ta! ta!” quietly put in M. Floçon; “we will discuss that fully, but
+not here. Come into the office; come, I say, or must we use force?”
+
+There was no escaping now, and with a poor attempt at bravado the
+stranger was led away.
+
+“Now, Colonel Papillon, look at him well. Do you know him? Are you
+satisfied it is—”
+
+“Mr. Quadling, late banker, of Rome. I have not the slightest doubt of
+it. I recognize him beyond all question.”
+
+“That will do. Silence, sir!” This to Quadling. “No observations. I too
+can recognize you now as the person who called himself Ripaldi an hour
+or two ago. Denial is useless. Let him be searched; thoroughly, you
+understand, La Pêche? Call in your other men; he may resist.”
+
+They gave the wretched man but scant consideration, and in less than
+three minutes had visited every pocket, examined every secret
+receptacle, and practically turned him inside out.
+
+After this there could no longer be any doubt of his identity, still
+less of his complicity in the crime.
+
+First among the many damning evidences of his guilt was the missing
+pocketbook of the porter of the sleeping-car. Within was the train card
+and the passengers’ tickets, all the papers which the man Groote had
+lost so unaccountably. They had, of course, been stolen from his person
+with the obvious intention of impeding the inquiry into the murder.
+Next, in another inner pocket was Quadling’s own wallet, with his own
+visiting-cards, several letters addressed to him by name; above all, a
+thick sheaf of bank-notes of all nationalities—English, French,
+Italian, and amounting in total value to several thousands of pounds.
+
+“Well, do you still deny? Bah! it is childish, useless, mere waste of
+breath. At last we have penetrated the mystery. You may as well
+confess. Whether or no, we have enough to convict you by independent
+testimony,” said the Judge, severely. “Come, what have you to say?”
+
+But Quadling, with pale, averted face, stood obstinately mute. He was
+in the toils, the net had closed round him, they should have no
+assistance from him.
+
+“Come, speak out; it will be best. Remember, we have means to make
+you—”
+
+“Will you interrogate him further, M. Beaumont le Hardi? Here, at
+once?”
+
+“No, let him be removed to the Prefecture; it will be more convenient;
+to my private office.”
+
+Without more ado a fiacre was called, and the prisoner was taken off
+under escort, M. Floçon seated by his side, one policeman in front,
+another on the box, and lodged in a secret cell at the Quai l’Horloge.
+
+“And you, gentlemen?” said the Judge to Sir Charles and Colonel
+Papillon. “I do not wish to detain you further, although there may be
+points you might help us to elucidate if I might venture to still
+trespass on your time?”
+
+Sir Charles was eager to return to the Hôtel Madagascar, and yet he
+felt that he should best serve his dear Countess by seeing this to the
+end. So he readily assented to accompany the Judge, and Colonel
+Papillon, who was no less curious, agreed to go too.
+
+“I sincerely trust,” said the Judge on the way, “that our people have
+laid hands on that woman Petitpré. I believe that she holds the key to
+the situation, that when we hear her story we shall have a clear case
+against Quadling; and—who knows?—she may completely exonerate Madame la
+Comtesse.”
+
+During the events just recorded, which occupied a good hour, the police
+agents had time to go and come from the Rue Bellechasse. They did not
+return empty-handed, although at first it seemed as if they had made a
+fruitless journey. The Hôtel Ivoire was a very second-class place, a
+lodging-house, or hotel with furnished rooms let out by the week to
+lodgers with whom the proprietor had no very close acquaintance. His
+clerk did all the business, and this functionary produced the register,
+as he is bound by law, for the inspection of the police officers, but
+afforded little information as to the day’s arrivals.
+
+“Yes, a man calling himself Dufour had taken rooms about midday, one
+for himself, one for madame who was with him, also named Dufour—his
+sister, he said;” and he went on at the request of the police officers
+to describe them.
+
+“Our birds,” said the senior agent, briefly. “They are wanted. We
+belong to the detective police.”
+
+“All right.” Such visits were not new to the clerk.
+
+“But you will not find monsieur; he is out; there hangs his key.
+Madame? No, she is within. Yes, that is certain, for not long since she
+rang her bell. There, it goes again.”
+
+He looked up at the furiously oscillating bell, but made no move.
+
+“Bah! they do not pay for service; let her come and say what she
+needs.”
+
+“Exactly; and we will bring her,” said the officer, making for the
+stairs and the room indicated.
+
+But on reaching the door, they found it locked. From within? Hardly,
+for as they stood there in doubt, a voice inside cried vehemently:
+
+“Let me out! Help! Help! Send for the police. I have much to tell them.
+Quick! Let me out.”
+
+“We are here, my dear, just as you require us. But wait; step down,
+Gaston, and see if the clerk has a second key. If not, call in a
+locksmith—the nearest. A little patience only, my beauty. Do not fear.”
+
+The key was quickly produced, and an entrance effected.
+
+A woman stood there in a defiant attitude, with arms akimbo; she, no
+doubt, of whom they were in search. A tall, rather masculine-looking
+creature, with a dark, handsome face, bold black eyes just now flashing
+fiercely, rage in every feature.
+
+“Madame Dufour?” began the police officer.
+
+“Dufour! Rot! My name is Hortense Petitpré; who are you? _La Rousse?_”
+(Police.)
+
+“At your service. Have you anything to say to us? We have come on
+purpose to take you to the Prefecture quietly, if you will let us; or—”
+
+“I will go quietly. I ask nothing better. I have to lay information
+against a miscreant—a murderer—the vile assassin who would have made me
+his accomplice—the banker, Quadling, of Rome!”
+
+In the fiacre Hortense Petitpré talked on with such incessant abuse,
+virulent and violent, of Quadling, that her charges were neither
+precise nor intelligible.
+
+It was not until she appeared before M. Beaumont le Hardi, and was
+handled with great dexterity by that practised examiner, that her story
+took definite form.
+
+What she had to say will be best told in the clear, formal language of
+the official disposition.
+
+The witness inculpated stated:
+
+“She was named Aglaé Hortense Petitpré, thirty-four years of age, a
+Frenchwoman, born in Paris, Rue de Vincennes No. 374. Was engaged by
+the Contessa Castagneto, November 19, 189—, in Rome, as lady’s maid,
+and there, at her mistress’s domicile, became acquainted with the Sieur
+Francis Quadling, a banker of the Via Condotti, Rome.
+
+“Quadling had pretensions to the hand of the Countess, and sought, by
+bribes and entreaties, to interest witness in his suit. Witness often
+spoke of him in complimentary terms to her mistress, who was not very
+favourably disposed towards him.
+
+“One afternoon (two days before the murder) Quadling paid a lengthened
+visit to the Countess. Witness did not hear what occurred, but Quadling
+came out much distressed, and again urged her to speak to the Countess.
+He had heard of the approaching departure of the lady from Rome, but
+said nothing of his own intentions.
+
+“Witness was much surprised to find him in the sleeping-car, but had no
+talk to him till the following morning, when he asked her to obtain an
+interview for him with the Countess, and promised a large reward. In
+making this offer he produced a wallet and exhibited a very large
+number of notes.
+
+“Witness was unable to persuade the Countess, although she returned to
+the subject frequently. Witness so informed Quadling, who then spoke to
+the lady, but was coldly received.
+
+“During the journey witness thought much over the situation. Admitted
+that the sight of Quadling’s money had greatly disturbed her, but,
+although pressed, would not say when the first idea of robbing him took
+possession of her. (Note by Judge—That she had resolved to do so is,
+however, perfectly clear, and the conclusion is borne out by her acts.
+It was she who secured the Countess’s medicine bottle; she, beyond
+doubt, who drugged the porter at Laroche. In no other way can her
+presence in the sleeping-car between Laroche and Paris be accounted
+for-presence which she does not deny.)
+
+“Witness at last reluctantly confessed that she entered the compartment
+where the murder was committed, and at a critical moment. An affray was
+actually in progress between the Italian Ripaldi and the incriminated
+man Quadling, but the witness arrived as the last fatal blow was struck
+by the latter.
+
+“She saw it struck, and saw the victim fall lifeless on the floor.
+
+“Witness declared she was so terrified she could at first utter no cry,
+nor call for help, and before she could recover herself the murderer
+threatened her with the ensanguined knife. She threw herself on her
+knees, imploring pity, but the man Quadling told her that she was an
+eye-witness, and could take him to the guillotine,—she also must die.
+
+“Witness at last prevailed on him to spare her life, but only on
+condition that she would leave the car. He indicated the window as the
+only way of escape; but on this for a long time she refused to venture,
+declaring that it was only to exchange one form of death for another.
+Then, as Quadling again threatened to stab her, she was compelled to
+accept this last chance, never hoping to win out alive.
+
+“With Quadling’s assistance, however, she succeeded in climbing out
+through the window and in gaining the roof. He had told her to wait for
+the first occasion when the train slackened speed to leave it and shift
+for herself. With this intention he gave her a thousand francs, and
+bade her never show herself again.
+
+“Witness descended from the train not far from the small station of
+Villeneuve on the line, and there took the local train for Paris.
+Landed at the Lyons Station, she heard of the inquiry in progress, and
+then, waiting outside, saw Quadling disguised as the Italian leave in
+company with another man. She followed and marked Quadling down,
+meaning to denounce him on the first opportunity. Quadling, however, on
+issuing from the restaurant, had accosted her, and at once offered her
+a further sum of five thousand francs as the price of silence, and she
+had gone with him to the Hôtel Ivoire, where she was to receive the
+sum. Quadling had paid it, but on one condition, that she would remain
+at the Hotel Ivoire until the following day. Apparently he had
+distrusted her, for he had contrived to lock her into her compartment.
+As she did not choose to be so imprisoned, she summoned assistance, and
+was at length released by the police.”
+
+This was the substance of Hortense Petitpré’s deposition, and it was
+corroborated in many small details.
+
+When she appeared before the Judge, with whom Sir Charles Collingham
+and Colonel Papillon were seated, the former at once pointed out that
+she was wearing a dark mantle trimmed with the same sort of
+passementerie as that picked up in the sleeping-car.
+
+L’ENVOI
+
+
+Quadling was in due course brought before the Court of Assize and tried
+for his life. There was no sort of doubt of his guilt, and the jury so
+found, but, having regard to certain extenuating circumstances, they
+recommended him to mercy. The chief of these was Quadling’s positive
+assurance that he had been first attacked by Ripaldi; he declared that
+the Italian detective had in the first instance tried to come to terms
+with him, demanding 50,000 francs as his price for allowing him to go
+at large; that when Quadling distinctly refused to be black-mailed,
+Ripaldi struck at him with a knife, but that the blow failed to take
+effect.
+
+Then Quadling closed with him and took the knife from him. It was a
+fierce encounter, and might have ended either way, but the unexpected
+entrance of the woman Petitpré took off Ripaldi’s attention, and then
+he, Quadling, maddened and reckless, stabbed him to the heart.
+
+It was not until after the deed was done that Quadling realized the
+full measure of his crime and its inevitable consequences. Then, in a
+daring effort to extricate himself, he intimidated the woman Petitpré,
+and forced her to escape through the sleeping-car window.
+
+It was he who had rung the signal-bell to stop the train and give her a
+chance of leaving it. It was after the murder, too, that he conceived
+the idea of personating Ripaldi, and, having disfigured him beyond
+recognition, as he hoped, he had changed clothes and compartments.
+
+On the strength of this confession Quadling escaped the guillotine, but
+he was transported to New Caledonia for life.
+
+The money taken on him was forwarded to Rome, and was usefully employed
+in reducing his liabilities to the depositors in the bank.
+
+One other word.
+
+Some time in June the following announcement appeared in all the Paris
+papers:
+
+“Yesterday, at the British Embassy, General Sir Charles Collingham, K.
+C. B., was married to Sabine, Contessa di Castagneto, widow of the
+Italian Count of that name.”
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
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